A Simple Twist of Fate
by Jennifer Wand
Summary: Matt/Mohinder. What would have happened if Matt, not Janice, had picked up the phone when Mohinder called in Season 1?
1. Chapter 1

Six months' suspension

Six months' suspension. Six _months._ No job. Jan pregnant. No income. Mortgage. Bills. Baby. Time to panic.

No. Time not to panic. Time to get on the phone. Security jobs. Easy. Qualified. Everything's OK.

I've got to stop thinking like a crazy person. There are people out there way worse off. I've seen 'em. C'mon, Matt. You can always talk another guy down off a ledge. Talk yourself down now. Talk yourself down.

Right. Let's assess the situation. I'm going to be a father. That's a good thing. I just have to start acting like one. Like a real one. No reason to look backward. I know I'm gonna be a better dad than _he_ was. First thing I need is the paper. Job listings. Right. Time to pick up the phone.

The phone's _ringing._

* * *

"Hello."

He picks up after the first ring. His voice sounds gruff. Jolted. Like he's been sitting right by the phone, waiting for my call.

"Mr. Parkman? Am I speaking to Matt Parkman?"

"Yes, who is this?" Perhaps he's clairvoyant. Perhaps he knew that I was going to call. Wouldn't that be fascinating. I like the sound of his voice somehow. There's weariness in it. It makes me want to know him.

"Hello? Who is this?" Oh, dear.

"I'm sorry. My name is Dr. Mohinder Suresh. I was hoping... Do you have a moment to talk?"

"About what?" The voice is just fascinating. I can't put my finger on why.

"I'm currently working on a project involving certain abnormal genetic markers, and I believe you may be one of the people bearing such a marker." He hasn't hung up yet. "This may sound odd, but could you tell me whether you have experienced anything..." Still he hasn't hung up. This is the moment of truth. "..unusual lately?"

A pause on the line. Have I lost him? Damn. I'd wanted to hear him speak again. Or perhaps it's just that I've never gotten this far along in a conversation with anyone since I began this odd little telemarketing endeavor.

"What do you want?" Oh, thank goodness. He's still there. He's speaking close to the phone, his voice guarded. "How did you find me? Are you with _them?_"

Oh, please don't be a crazy person. Please. "I'm working entirely on my own, I assure you. I found you through the Human Genome Project. Am... am I correct, then, in assuming that you've discovered some ability, or trait, that seems out of the ordinary to you?"

I'm imagining his voice saying yes. All honey and gravel.

"Yes." Not quite as I envisioned. But still worth hearing. Dear Lord, what am I going on about? I must need some more caffeine.

"May I... ask..."

"No. Not yet." He's afraid. Of the _them_ he mentioned? "First, you have to tell me what you want from me."

"I... I'd like to go out there to meet with you." Trying not to sound threatening. I don't want him to say no. But even if he does, I'm still pulling up flights on my laptop as I talk. "Perhaps we could talk in person. I could..." I stop short of asking him for a DNA sample. He's too afraid of whatever it is that's worrying him.

"I have to talk to my wife." There is absolutely no reason that should feel like a kick in the gut. "Can I, um... can I call you back?"

"Yes. Of course." I give him my number, but I have already determined to be on the next plane out. I'd like to take advantage of the opportunity to visit several places on that coast. I can rent a car from there and go on a bit of a road trip.

I hang up the phone only with regret. He's my first shot at meeting one of _them_ (Peter Petrelli notwithstanding-- I'm still not entirely convinced he isn't insane), so I hate to let the conversation end. There's no guarantee the dream won't end along with it.

* * *

Her face has rounded out a little. It's sort of-- God, _no._ She's beautiful. Beautiful. You think that, honestly. You do. You are the worst person imaginable to think otherwise for even a moment. Worst husband imaginable.

"Honey, I, uh, got a call today." See? Beautiful. You can think that. You _do_ think that. "From this doctor. He, ah, he might be able to tell me what's happening to me."

"What?" Round face, round eyes. Soon to be round belly. Stop, Matt, _stop._ "Wait, I thought you told me the people who--" Why does she whisper the word? "-who _abducted_ you did this to you."

Hate it when she's right. Hate how often it is that she's right. "Well, maybe they didn't. Maybe it's like, some weird disease. He was talking about a genetic marker or something."

"Right." The single angled eyebrow looks silly in the midst of all that roundness. "The I-can-hear-_thoughts_ disease. What makes you think you can believe a word this guy says?"

And she's right again. "I don't know. I _can't._ But, I--" I just got the feeling. His voice was so measured, like he was afraid of getting too excited. Like he was trying to protect _me_ from something. I can't remember the last time anyone ever tried to protect me from anything.

"Well? What did he want you to do, this doctor?"

She's so pragmatic. God knows what this household would come to if not for her. "T-- to meet. Talk to him."

"And? Did you say yes?"

Finally. A chance to say the Right Thing. I know this answer. "I told him I'd have to talk to you. I thought that you'd want to know."

Good. She lights up. That means she's happy to have been asked. But now her face is dark again. Damn it. The better I know her, the less I know how to make her happy. "But you want to meet him, don't you?" She sounds more tired than anything else.

"Y--yeah. I do. But you're more important to me, Jan. You tell me yes or no." That should be the Right Thing again. But I know her too well to be able to tell anymore. It's like looking through a fog. Her eyes are filling with tears.

"And what if I say no?" she says, very quietly.

That's it, I have no more patience for this game. "If? Is that what you're saying, or isn't it?" I can't put up with some test where I have to answer her hypothetical the right way or she won't say yes. I know it well. It's how hostage takers negotiate. They wait for cops to say the thing they want to hear. They like to think they've maneuvered us into just the right position. Always think they're smarter, even though we've done this a thousand times before. But I'm not Jan's hostage. And if I am, there's something seriously wrong with this situation. "Are you saying no, Janice?"

The tears escape her eyes two at a time. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah. I'm saying no."

I turn away from her. I can't face the finality of those tears. Of those words. "Think about it, Matt," she shouts. It's her shouty-explaining tone. The one that sounds angrier than it means to be, because she's angrier than she means to be. "We're having a baby. I'm _pregnant._ I get that you want to know what's going on with you. So do I. But I also want to know how we're going to afford to raise this child. So think about me. For once. Think about us."

"I think about you all the time! How dare you say I don't?" I'm roaring. I put a lid on it immediately.

But I've already set her off. "I'd just hope that if you've got the time to meet someone, it'd be for a goddamned job interview!"

As though I'm impossibly lazy when I'm _not_ at a job interview. "All right, honey," I say, turning back to her. "All right. Anything you say."

But now I'm just saying the Right Thing again. It's clear to me from the moment I see her break down, whisper thank yous into my shoulder, that I've lied to her. Again. God, once it starts, it's so hard to stop.

* * *

My heart, I think, is humming. I'm fairly sure that's the noise it's making as I move through the gates. What is it about this airport, as plastic and pre-packaged as it is, that nonetheless fills my mind with this odd anticipation? Perhaps it's simply the return of the sun. October is dreadful on the East Coast. (I suppose I should not be so quick to enjoy. One of my stops will be Montana, after all. It will be far worse than New York there.)

I can't even wait until I've got the rental car. I've got to call again.

The phone rings. What if his wife has said no? She ought to be as concerned about this as anyone. Somehow I'm predisposed to dislike her, just the same. Poor woman. She's done nothing to deserve my animosity.

Still, I'm rather pleased when her husband is the one to answer the phone. "Hello?"

Again, that earthy, full tone. It makes me a little bit giddy. Or perhaps it's just the proximity to my dream. "Mr. Parkman."

"Yeah. Hi. Is this Dr. Suresh?" His voice drops. "Hi. I'm sorry I didn't call you sooner. I've been uh..."

"I just landed. When can we meet?" I can't believe I've just said that. I interrupted him. I sound overeager. He's going to run in the other direction.

"Well. About that." He pauses. See? That's what happens when you're overeager and unprofessional. I can hear my father now. _Mohinder, you damned fool._

"I'll only take an hour or so of your time." Thought is simply not preceding speech today. "I'm really anxious to talk to you. There are some things that... you really ought to know."

My brain reboots and I remember why I just said that. It's sobering. I'd nearly forgotten, but Matt's... Mr. Parkman's life may very well be in danger.

He seems to be wavering. Finally, he mumbles, "Yeah. We should meet."

I ask, but I don't want to know the answer. "So your wife was fine with the idea? Will she be joining us?"

"No. It'll just be me." He sounds decidedly uncomfortable.

"But she _was_ fine with our meeting. Right?"

(_Please_ lie to me.)

He's generous enough to do just that. "Yeah. It's fine."

* * *

I can't believe I live in L.A., sometimes, because I hate palm trees. Really, I hate them. They're spiky and unfriendly and not at all huggable. I'm not even a tree-hugger, but trees ought to at least be somewhat huggable. 'Cause if Al Gore is right, we're gonna have them to thank for our continued existence one of these days. Or something like that.

Even more than real palm trees, I hate plastic palm trees. What, the real tree didn't look phony enough for ya? Plastic palm trees are the anorexic starlets of the plant kingdom. Having a lot of them might convince some tourists you're hot, but to the lifers, you just look shallow.

Long story short, the decor bugs me here. But it's a crowded enough place that I figure we have a good chance of getting lost in the shuffle. I told Jan I had a job interview a few blocks from her office. It was my only excuse for having her bring me into the city. Otherwise I'd be stuck in suburbia.

It's unbelievable how I've learned to sort out sounds so quickly. There's a million trains of thought going on in here. Yet somehow I can let them wash over me one at a time. I still get headaches. But it's like I can now open one eye at a time, and not be totally blinded. As I adjust my tie (had to dress like I was going to a job interview, too), I get accustomed to the mental volume.

_...sure this script is the one...  
...fucking whore and her stupid chihuahua...  
...boring me to tears...  
...es posible que...  
...hope he notices me...  
...uso maji kirei na hito...  
...sue the pants off this asshole first thing tomorrow...  
...oh dear Lord is that him? I think it must be him..._

That last person was thinking with a British accent. My eyes wander and then connect with a pair of wide brown ones.

Oh, God, _that's_ Dr. Suresh? He's a _boy._ He can't be thirty. How can he even be a doctor? He's staring at me like he's a seven-year-old in a movie theater. He's dangling his spoon dangerously over the soup. If it falls now, it's gonna spill all over you, Doc.

"Dr. Suresh?" I approach him. He shakes himself, as if waking from a dream.

"Yes. Mr. Parkman, I take it?" He smiles genially and extends a hand. We shake. His hand is warm. His skin is a gorgeous shade, the sort of coloring it costs five figures to have done artificially around here. Come to think of it, he's just all-over pretty. Back in my college days, I consigned folks like that to a horrific fate by virtue of their looks. Most specifically, I tended to want their heads slammed in a car door. Just as a handicap. Make life a little fairer for the rest of us poor saps.

"How did you identify me?" he asks. "Was I looking as lost as I feel, I wonder?"

Well, yes, but that's not how. "Just a hunch. Not a lot of people here looking like they have the name Suresh."

His glances around at the bleached-blond homogeneity. "I suppose. I'm very pleased you could make it," he goes on as I sit. "I suppose you have a lot of questions."

Understatement of the _year._ "Can you tell me what's happening to me? Why did I get saddled with this? Is there a way to stop it?"

I don't realize how far I'm leaning over the table at him until he shrinks back. I retreat, embarrassed. "Sorry."

"No. That's fine." _Can barely breathe,_ he thinks. Crap. I didn't mean to scare him. "I have yet to ask you anything, so I can't give you specifics, but I can tell you this much: What's happening to you is the result of a specific genetic anomaly in your DNA. A statistical handful of people worldwide seem to have it, but that handful translates to hundreds, maybe thousands. I'm working on an inhibitor, something that might be able to dull the effect of the abnormality, but as of now, there is no cure, I'm afraid."

Only one part of this sticks with me. "So it's not something _they_ did to me."

_His mysterious __**they**__ again,_ he thinks. _I wonder if it has anything to do with the man who broke into my apartment. __**Again.**__ He may just be a serial study robber, but somehow I doubt it._

I'm knocking over the salt shaker, reaching across the table, grabbing him. "What man? Did he-- did he wear glasses?"

And now he's really frightened. I have to learn how to pause and figure out if what I've heard is said or thought before I respond.

I sit back down. "I'm sorry. I got excited."

But now his eyes are wide. "Did you just--" _Read my mind?_

"Not your mind. Not your memories or anything. I just-- heard your thoughts. I sort of do that a lot these days."

He stares another moment, and then he breaks out into a huge grin. A huge, childish, absolutely contagious grin. I laugh, because something about it tickles me. He shouldn't be a scientist. He should have some job that requires him to smile like that all. the. Time. I swear, the temperature in here just rose five degrees. They could use that smile to heat homes in the winter. What the hell am I going on about, anyway?

"You heard my thoughts?" He's not asking me so much as telling himself. "You heard my thoughts. That is extraordinary. I don't think I'd even pondered such a possibility. Might I--"

"Just think of a number." I pause a moment. "43,582. Oh, no fair adding decimal places to it afterward. That's cheating."

He gapes. For the first time, I feel kind of proud. I'm an object of scientific curiosity. Whoda thunkit.

He tries to throw an image at me, tries the same old things Janice did when I first told her. I have to set him straight, laughing each time and shaking my head. His enthusiasm is really kind of, well, I guess adorable's not a great word for a grown man, but he seriously looks like such a kid. I get the overwhelming feeling that this is the best time he's had in months. There's some sort of sadness in his eyes, like he's just been through too much, seen too much. I'd know, after all. Still, as he asks questions and tries to test the limits of what I can do, none of that matters. For a few minutes, we're our own little island of brightness in the shitpile that is our lives. Complete with plastic palm trees, no less.

"I'd... I'd really like to test this further," he finally says, the dumb grin still on his face. "I don't suppose I-- no, I have to drive east, and then up to Montana to meet with someone else, and then--" His hands come down onto the table, like he's bracing himself. "Is there any chance at all that I could convince you to come out to New York in the near future?"

And his eyes are so steely that I very nearly consider it. But the island's gone, and I'm back on the mainland, fish out of water that I am. "I'm sorry. My wife--"

"Yes, yes, of course." His face falls. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked." Damn it. I want that goofy smile back, not the forced one he's giving me now. "I'd like at the very least to get a sample of your DNA, if you don't mind."

He gets the sample-- luckily enough, before I dive into my burger, or he'd have genes with melted cheese on the Q-tip. I'd rather not have him think I'm half charbroiled cow. At the end of our conversation, he gives me his card. Says he expects to be on the road all week, his cell phone will be good until then.

I can't imagine having a solid reason to call, but I don't tell him that. Why should I? If his mind is any indication, it's the very last thing he wants to hear.

* * *

I wait until he's gone. I wait until he's waved for the last time and gone through the doors and walked down the street and out of view. I wait a few more seconds just to be sure.

Then I collapse into my seat, hand on my pounding heart, and wipe the sweat from my forehead.

He can hear thoughts! He can _hear! Thoughts!_

He knew it was me because he heard me thinking. And he heard me thinking about the man who broke into my study. And he is a policeman-- God, how incredibly useful must that be?-- and he's married, though I don't want to dwell on that-- and he's a real person, he's really one of them, and oh dear Lord I completely neglected to warn him about Sylar, but he can _**hear thoughts!**_

Control. Control. What I need is control. I should write down my impressions. Or something.

He seems to be a fairly well-adjusted sort. I guess. It's nice to know they're not all psychotic deranged killers. Unassuming type. A little shy, but not bookish and shy like I am. Very all-American in general. Fairly good-looking. No, Mohinder, do. not. go. there. It is purely an objective observation. Of course. Part of my overall impressions.

His voice. Even better in person. I'm just worked up now. Too excited to think straight. If Eden had ever told me that she was one of them, I probably would have had the same reaction. (Poor girl. I hope she finds some peace, wherever she might be.)

Now I feel slightly sobered. Good thing, too. I think my excitement might have run away with me. I fear just how far it might have gone.

But there's still the issue of Sylar. I'll have to follow up.

* * *

Up until now everything was going so well.

Jan and I were talking about names and nursery colors on the way home. She was laughing every time I said the word "puce." (She said it reminded her of morning sickness.) I felt pleased, like a little boy who was being praised by his parents' friends.

Then we got home and the message light was blinking. And a moment ago she pressed the button. And now everything's going straight to hell.

"Hello, Mr. Parkman, this is Dr. Suresh." I go for the button, but I'm not fast enough. "It was a pleasure meeting you today. I'm terribly sorry, but there was something I forgot to mention during our conversation, and it's rather important--"

Janice turns off the tape. Puts her hands on her hips. Looks at me. Doesn't need to say a word.

"It's not what you th--"

"Don't _lie_ to me, Matt!" From zero to volcanic eruption in 0.2 seconds. "You know that's not fair, since I can't lie to you!"

Wait, hold the fuck on, what kind of priorities are those? "But if you could, it'd be OK?" For real? She's pissed because _she_ can't lie to _me_?

"I thought we'd agreed!"

"We didn't agree! You dictated!"

"Because you asked!" And from volcanic eruption, we proceed apace to flash flooding. "I thought you were going to put this baby first!"

"This is important to me, Jan!" Fine. She wants honest, she's gonna get honest. "This thing that's happened to me has totally screwed up my life. Why do you think I've been suspended, huh? Because of this!" I smack my own head a little. "This ridiculous thing I can do! I need answers!"

"And I need help!" she cries. "I can't handle this on my own, Matt! I thought you wanted to be a father!"

"I do!"

"Then why aren't you acting like one? _God!_" What really puzzles me about her is, she's not acting disappointed, just frustrated. Like I'm some sort of irritation she has to put up with to get what she wants. I'm not a husband, I'm one of her damned legal briefs. She'll revise me until I'm good enough for her and then ship me off to some judge and never think about me again.

The sarcasm leaps off my tongue. "Gee, I'm sorry, honey, I guess I must have misplaced the manual. Or maybe it's the fact that I'm hearing thoughts and lost three days of my life and have been..." I bite my tongue. I haven't told her anything about the FBI or tracking down Sylar. Or, God forbid, Ted. She doesn't need to know about the others. She's weirded out enough by me.

"What, Matt? What have you been? Confused? Frustrated? Feeling betrayed?" She throws up her hands like she's tossing me aside, like she's swatting at me as though I'm a mosquito. "I really thought you were going to do better than this," she said. Her thoughts go further. _If I'd known he was going to be this unreliable, I never would have told him in the first place._

"What do you mean you never would have told me?" I say, grabbing her wrist. She looks down at it, shocked. "What the hell does that mean? What wouldn't you have told me? About the baby?"

_That it's yours._

And it all comes tumbling down.

I let go. I stumble backward. She starts to shake her head. "Don't read my mind, Matt. That's not fair."

"Not _fair!?_" I can't read her eyes, not at all. I can barely stand up straight. "Do you know what you just thought?! Janice..."

She shakes her head again mutely.

I don't know how I find the strength to ask the question. "Janice, is that my baby or isn't it?"

She turns icy. I can practically see the prickles of frost crawling up her face. "Do the math yourself and figure it out," she says in a low and dispassionate voice. "You know when my last period was. You know when we started having sex again. If you want to know the answer to that question, you're going to have to figure it out yourself."

I'm staggering backward like I'm drunk. I grab a wall. It proves too slippery. I grab a chair instead. She's going for the phone. Why is she going for the phone? Who is she going to call?

I can't hear anything. Like water's rushing in my ears. Not her voice, not her thoughts, nothing. Just see her talking, glancing at the window, hanging up. She comes across the room and says, "The taxi will be here in 20 minutes. You have until then to pack. We'll work out the rest in a few days."

And that's it. I'm headed off to a hotel, having seen eleven years of my life shattered because I dared have lunch with a scientist. All the trust I thought I'd won back, gone. There's no going back now. I'm pretty sure of that much. It's one too many lies, one too many changing priorities.

I don't even know what I'm doing when I call the number. I just hear him answer, and when I tell him who it is, he starts chomping at the bit. He wants to tell me something. But I can't hear, still, so I just interrupt him. "You still want me to come to New York with you?"

**Next: Parallel lines intersect**


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's note: This is a PG-13-rated version of this chapter, to comply with fanfiction dot net's rules. To view the original chapter, please visit tiptoe39 dot livejournal dot com /534983.html._

He's still numb when we meet this morning. Last night he began the conversation in a good humor, but the moment I asked the reason for his turnaround, he clammed up. He wouldn't discuss it. So I'm here at the restaurant in some suburban Holiday Inn, forcing dry rice cereal down my throat and determined to talk him out of it.

"I can't let you do this," I say as he approaches and sits. He grimaces. "I've only just met you, and I already know this is the wrong move. First of all, I never invited you to drive up with me. I simply asked you to come to New York on your own time."

"I didn't hear you say that last night," he says, a tad too loud. A few people turn their heads. I'm glad he can't see me blush. One of the benefits of my complexion.

"More to the point." I soldier on, crushing a few rice puffs with my spoon for emphasis. "Whatever is going on at home, you can't run from it. That's only going to make things worse."

"Things don't get worse," he says stonily.

This hits a nerve. "You can afford to stay at a hotel when things are bad," I say pointedly. "I come from a country where a full quarter of the people live on less than one American dollar a day. Things can get a lot worse."

His eyes darken for a second, and he seems stirred. But it's not enough to overcome whatever inner wall he's erected. "That's not what I'm talking about," he says. "Listen, Doc. You want to know more about me and what I can do? This is the deal. We go for a ride. You let me help you with the driving. I tell you anything you want to know. You can prod me and poke me with needles and anything you want. With two catches."

"Two?" I hadn't expected that.

"One, you let me come along. And two, you end up being in Bennet's pocket and all bets are off."

Now I'm lost. "Who?"

"Bennet. The paper salesman. The guy with the horn-rimmed glasses. Who broke into your place."

I hadn't put two and two together until just now. The gears slide into place in my mind with a deafening click, and I'm gaping. "His name is Bennet. I don't think I knew that," I hear myself say. "Wait. How do you know..."

"I know a lot," he says smartly. "But you have to take the deal first, Doc."

Well. Here we have a classic ethical dilemma, don't we? On the one hand, I have my very first willing participant in my research, a man with an extraordinary ability who's offering to go with me to New York and submit to any number of tests and questions. And what's more, he has information about the man who's been hounding me. But he has a wife. and perhaps a family. And by all rights he ought to take care of himself and his own life first and foremost. Besides, what if Sylar comes for him when he's gone and his family...

He stands up so violently that his chair goes clattering backwards. "How do you know about Sylar?" he demands.

I shoot up, too. "How do _you_ know about him?"

"I've been working with the FBI. Trying to track him. This Bennet guy, his daughter was attacked by him. And he killed a couple here in L.A., too."

"And my father. He killed my father." The words are out before I can stop them.

We both sit. Stunned. I keep peering into his eyes as though I'll be able to see answers if I look just a little harder.

"Oh, my God," he says, finally. He gives a little frustrated laugh. "This has just gotten a whole lot more complicated."

I nod mutely.

And he grins wryly. "Looks like you could use my help even more than I thought, Doc."

He's right. Matt Parkman has, just like that, become the man I cannot afford to let go. He may very well be the key to unraveling this whole mystery.

I extend my hand. "If we're going to be sharing a car," I say, "I hope you'll call me Mohinder."

* * *

I call Janice at home noonish, when I know she'll be at work. I'm not ready yet to talk to her live. I'm not entirely sure I'm even ready to leave a message for her, but too late now, because the beep just did its beeping thing and now my mouth is moving.

"Uh, Jan. It's me. I'm, uh, gonna go away for a little while. I don't... I don't know what you were trying to tell me last night. Maybe I don't want to know. But I-- I know that we can't go on like this. I think..."

My voice breaks. But that's not all that's broken and that's what I say next.

"I think... I think something's broken, Jan. I think we've tried really hard, and we pretended as hard as we could, but pretending isn't going to make it right, you know? This-- this isn't who I am. I'm not the kind of guy who can just decide what I'm gonna pay attention to and ignore the rest. I-- I need to figure me out first." I sniffle, wipe away my tears on the back of my hand. "I know it's selfish, and I know it's immature and not what you want. But it's time. It's time for me. And when I think about it--"

"When I think about it, you know it's time, too. That's why you told me that, isn't it?" Saying it is like a revelation. "That's why you left the question there for me to answer. You were giving me a chance to get out. I had to take it. It was the right thing for me to do. Thanks... thanks for giving it to me, even if it hurt you.

"I loved you, Janice. I really did. Maybe... maybe I still do. And maybe you still love me. But for now... for now, it's time.

"Goodbye, Janice."

I wish the sound of the phone coming down didn't sound so much like a gunshot ramming through my skull.

* * *

Why on earth that particular film had to be on television last night I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps some vengeful god has it in for me, because now I'm petrified. This is all I need, visions of the Carmate from Hell. The movie was a comedy, that much I'll give it. I don't seriously think we'll end up bit by rattlesnakes or with cockroaches swarming the car or falling into the rapids, or beset by any of the other misadventures to befall the poor protagonists of that particular movie. But really, how do I know this is going to work out? How do I know we won't be biting each other's heads off within an hour?

When he comes outside, he's wearing a shirt that has flamingos and palm trees on it. Sunglasses are perched on his forehead. His suitcase is bulky, awkwardly packed. For a moment I feel the earth shudder as though it is about to swallow me whole. Fate cannot possibly be that cruel, can it?

Then he walks over and silently puts 20 in my hand. "For the first fill-up," he says. "Don't argue."

And my heart flies out of my ribs into the ether.

Oh, dear. Oh, no.

He puts his case into the trunk, straining to lift it. "I overpack. Bad habit, I know," he says as he sets it down with a heavy thunk, making the car bounce. He slams the lid down and turns to me, resting his forearms on the back of the car. "I really, really appreciate this," he says soberly. "It's something I really need. And if there's any chance you can give me any answers--"

"I don't know that I can," I admit. "But I'll try."

"That's all I can ask for, I guess," he says.

When he smiles, I make a split-second strategic decision that I will be reciting the alphabet in Tamil every time my thoughts threaten to get away from me. Because I'm going to need something to keep my privacy intact. If I keep the verbal thoughts simple, I should be able to think underneath the hum. We'll see how well that works.

He piles into the passenger seat. There's something about his movements that's so fascinating, it's as though he's choreographed. I don't know what it is. I get in beside him and pull out of the hotel driveway, and we're on the road.

"What do you like to listen to in the car?" he asks as we turn onto the main drag heading toward the highway. I have a GPS, but it's simply silently showing me the way. I can't stand the voice function.

"Music, you mean? To tell you the truth, I don't drive much. What do you suggest?"

He shrugs. "Classic rock's good driving music. Or if you're a political type, we've got good talk radio around here."

I can't help it-- I roll my eyes. "Please, God, no."

"Oh, no, it's not bad," he insists. "I'm a pinko commie liberal like everyone else around here, so I like the Air America station. There's a funny chick on in the early morning. Guy who does voices, lots of fart jokes. Goofy stuff."

"I repeat myself: please, God, no." I merge onto the highway. He fumbles with the radio and finds a station. The song playing lights him up like a Roman candle.

_Some folks are born made to wave the flag,  
Ooh, they're red, white and blue.  
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief",  
they point the cannon right at you.  
It ain't me, it ain't me.  
I ain't no senator's son.  
It ain't me, it ain't me.  
I ain't no fortunate one. _

He drums his fingers on his thigh and mouths the lyrics, bobbing his head. My stomach is in knots for some reason I can't name. When he sees me looking and grins, I practically swallow my tongue. Why are my nerves on edge?

"So, why are you?" I ask.

"Why am I what?" He tilts his head.

"A liberal."

He shrugs. "I guess because I think we ought to take care of each other. I don't see any reason government shouldn't be the way we do that. Plus, all of the dick-waving gun-rights gay-bashing bullshit on the other side annoys me."

I laugh. "Are they that bad?"

"You have no idea. My theory is they're all a bunch of closet cases. Can't stand the fact that they find themselves fantasizing about other men, so they thump their chests and bitch and moan about how wrong it is. Am I offending you?"

"Not in the slightest. It's a very entertaining theory." And it is. I'm fairly apolitical, so for me it's just entertainment. Besides, he's got an amusing way with words. Quirky. Casual. Rather engaging. Ka, kā, ki, kī, ku.

"What is that?" he asks.

"What?"

"That chant. You've been singing it all day."

Oh. Oh, no. "It's... it's my first language."

His eyebrows go up. "English isn't your first language? But you sound so fluent. I mean, you don't even sound Indian. At _all._"

"So I've been told." We turn onto the interstate. "I was educated in England. When I'm home I pick up some Indian speech habits, but most of the time, I'm told, I sound awfully British."

"It's nice." Ke, kē, kai, ko, kō, kau. I'm sure judicious application of the alphabet will keep my heart still. "I mean, it could be worse. You could sound like me, right?"

"That _would_ be worse."

"That wasn't what you were supposed to say." He's pouting. He's actually pouting. But then we both smile.

Sunlight is pouring into the car. I feel somewhat drowned in it. There are mountains in the distance ahead of us. We're driving toward them, drawn on by something bigger than us, something in the flat freeway and swell of the hills, like the earth moving. I feel as though I am accomplishing something, mile by mile. Speeding on toward destiny.

I glance at the clock. We've been driving an hour. How is that possible? We just started. "Four hours to Las Vegas," I mention. He looks as surprised as I am.

He bends his elbows behind his head and whistles slightly. "So what's in Vegas, anyway?" he asks. "Besides casinos and naked women, or did I just answer my own question?"

"D.L. Hawkins," I say.

"What's that?"

"It's a name." I squint as the sun shifts, hitting me square in the eye. "From my father's list."

And like a shadow, I can feel his gaze on me. Sun on one side, darkness on the other. "List?"

I relate the whole sordid story. My father's research, his flight to America and subsequent murder, my search for his secrets, the return to India and discovery of the list. And then, for no good reason, I mention my encounter with Peter Petrelli.

"Wait, hold it, stop. Peter Petrelli!?"

I almost drive off the road. "You know him?"

"He was in Texas. When Bennet's kid got attacked. By Sylar. Oh, my God." He puts his head in his hands, laughing. "Mohinder, you ever get the feeling someone's lived the exact same life as you, but in a different place? I mean, Jesus! How many other mutual friends have we got? It's like parallel universes or something."

My mind is spinning around the fact that he's just said my given name for the first time and I kind of like the way that sounds. (N.a, n.ā, n.i, n.ī, n.u, n.ū.) "Not parallel," I say. "Parallel lines don't ever intersect."

He screws up his face. "Math nerd."

I laugh. "I've been called worse."

"So have I." He smirks. I fight down the warmth building in my chest. I like this man. I really, really like him. I'm terribly glad I met him. N.e, n.ē, n.ai, n.o, n.ō, n.au.

The song playing now is a little folky, with some nice harmonies. We listen in silence.

_Once I rose above the noise and confusion  
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion  
I was soaring ever higher  
But I flew too high_

_Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man  
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man  
I hear the voices when I'm dreaming  
Carry on, my wayward son..._

* * *

We're passing through the mountains now. I keep having flashbacks to freshman psychology. Either that or puberty, because the landscape is looking awfully Freudian to me. Swells of mountains, road like a straight arrow, penetrating the heart of them. Our little car, struggling on toward its destination, zipping through the narrow passageway. Oh, gross. I think I've just compared myself to sperm.

"So, my wife is pregnant," I say absently.

The tires screech. Mohinder (it's ridiculously easy to get used to calling him that) very nearly rear-ends a Mack truck. When he looks at me, he's sweating. "_What!?_" he stammers. "You're telling me that you-- that-- I should take the next exit, turn around, and bring you right back! My God!" I laugh, because he sounds just like my mother did back in the day. Quit your whining, Matthew, or so help me, I'm gonna turn this car right around and take you back home!

But then he thinks something that sobers me: _If I'd known he was going to be this unreliable..._

"Stop it," I say. "That's exactly what Janice thought. Right before she basically came right out and told me the kid wasn't mine. So don't even go any further."

He sits straight up as if jolted. "Oh. I hadn't realized... I'm sorry."

I shrug. "I'm feeling pretty numb about it all. I know I should be crushed, but... it's been so hard to relate to her after this whole thing happened, it's almost a blessing in disguise. Gives us an excuse to figure out where we stand."

He's silent, but I can hear his mind churning with curiosity. Well, we're got eighteen hours still to drive. Might as well tell the life story now. Maybe it'll last us to Vegas.

It very nearly does. The mountains are mostly behind us by the time I wind up. "Here's the thing about me," I say. "Ever since I was little, I've been really good at figuring things out based on what I could see. Jigsaw puzzles, that sort of thing, I was an ace at when I was a kid. It's also how I got through school. I couldn't read for shit, but I could make out maybe half the words, and the rest I got from context. That's why I'm a cop, why I want to be a detective. I'm great with clues and riddles. Just not so much the stuff that's beneath the surface.

"It's the same with people. I'm great with strangers. I can always figure out the Right Thing to Say. I can talk my way out of a lot of things, as long as I've just met the person I'm talking to and they don't know me from Adam. But once I get closer, that all goes to hell. You'd think this would help," I add, tapping my temple. "But it just makes everything worse.

"Case in point is Jan. Meeting her, dating her, getting her to say Yes and I Do-- easy. It was the living with her that was hard. After a while she started to get wise to when I was just saying the Right Thing, and it stopped being right. So now I'm just at a loss. What am I supposed to do or say?"

I realize I've been rambling. I glance over at him. Math nerd quips notwithstanding, there's something about this guy that defies categorization. He doesn't even look human. He doesn't fit among the Freudian landscape. He's not man or woman. He's a piece of art, something antiquated and indescribable, suddenly exposed to the sun and the air after ages gathering dust in some museum basement. I kind of want to show him the whole world. Weird.

"What about being yourself?" he says simply. "I mean, mightn't that be a more reliable indicator of how you'd get along with someone in the long run? If you're looking for someone to spend your life with, that is."

"First off, I don't take romantic advice from people who use words like 'reliable indicator.'" I scowl, and he laughs. (His laugh sounds like something out of a movie. It almost sounds fake. I didn't know real people laughed like that.) "Second of all, you say to be myself. My problem is, I don't know who that person is." My voice suddenly seems very small.

He adjusts his hands on the wheel. "That's funny that you should say that," he says quietly. "I get a very strong sense of identity from you."

"How's that?"

"I don't know." He shrugs. "I feel like I know you very well, and we've only been talking a few days. And you strike me as the type who knows exactly who he is."

I scratch my head and watch a hawk soar in the pale blueness stretching above us. "You might be right," I say. "I might just not like that guy very much."

"That's a shame," he says. "I like him a great deal."

I tilt my head back down to stare at him.

He's still. Chanting that foreign whatever again. I wonder if he's thinking about me in a foreign language.

I wonder if Jan's thinking of me right now. I wonder what the hell I'm thinking of right now. I feel a little like that bird. Just sort of hovering. Waiting for a meal or a place to rest to appear, carried by the wind. In a holding pattern.

* * *

Las Vegas is a tangle of smaller communities gathered as if in prayer around a cluster of skyscrapers that don't seem to ever touch ground. Where we stop the car and get out doesn't look anything like the neon images from movies. It's suburban, vanilla, sort of dry. The only bit of flavor is the red convertible, complete with fins, perched across the street like a lounging showgirl.

"So what's the plan?" Matt says, leaning over my shoulder as though the notepad in my hand contains something more significant than an address and a name. I can feel his breath on the side of my neck. I really wish he wouldn't do that. I feel like each of the hairs on my neck are standing on end.

"I don't know that there's a plan, necessarily." I swear, I haven't felt so conscious of someone's proximity in a long time. I want to concentrate on this Mr. Hawkins. I shift away. "Since he hasn't answered the phone, I suppose that means we're just going to have to knock." I shake out my legs. It's our first time standing up straight in five hours, and I think I've gone a bit to jelly in the calves. There's no motion from the small house across the street.

"That is one butt-ugly car, though," says Matt suddenly. I snort a little at his bluntness. "No, seriously. What kind of guy has a car with fins? That's a girl's car."

"That's because it's mine," says a voice, smooth as velvet, behind us. We turn around and find ourselves staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

"Move away from the car," says the blonde at the trigger end, motioning with the weapon. I throw up my hands, dropping the notepad onto the street. Matt moves a little slower than I do, but he follows suit. Thank God. My imagination had been going wild with images of him getting into a shootout with this woman. That's just what I need-- to be found with a bullet-riddled body in the middle of nowhere.

"Lady, we're not interested in you," he says, his eyes catching hers and holding. His fingers are spread wide, and his stance is steady. "We're here about a guy named Hawkins."

"That's my husband. But you ought to know that, if you're Linderman's goons." She pauses and lowers the gun slightly. "Come to think of it, you're not the usual sort he sends around. What do you want?" She puts the butt of the gun on the ground, her wrist bent around the other end, and leans on it as though it's a walking stick. Her hip is cocked, and her lips are downturned. She's a very pretty woman. Absolutely terrifying, but pretty.

"My name is Doctor Mohinder Suresh," I say. "I'd, um, hand you my card, but I'm afraid you might think I was going for a gun."

"You're not the one I'm worried about," she says, her eyes fixed on my companion. She's eying him like a side of beef. I'm somehow enraged.

"Could you tell me, Mrs. Hawkins..."

"Sanders." Her eyes dart to me, and I feel like I've been knocked backward six feet. "Niki Sanders."

"My apologies. Ms. Sanders." I glance at Matt. He's still got his hands in the air, but he's scowling. I don't feel terribly safe, even with the woman's gun on the ground. "I'm wondering if you might have noticed anything unusual about your husband lately. Any particular traits that you'd consider out of the ordinary?"

She stares at me another moment, and then throws her head back and gives a long, throaty laugh. I flinch when she twirls the shotgun upward, but she simply slings it over her shoulder like a fishing pole. "You're wondering if there's anything unusual? About D.L.!? God, that's about the funniest thing I've heard all week. C'mon inside."

* * *

It's after she's stowed the shotgun in the trunk of her car and led us inside, as we're going though the narrow hallway, that I hear her say, "This isn't a good idea. You shouldn't do this."

"What's not a good idea?" I ask. She cocks her head, looks back at me briefly, but doesn't say a word. Still, the moment she turns back to lead us into her kitchen, she starts talking again. "You don't know who these people are. What if they _are_ from Linderman? What if they're here as some sort of trick?" The voice is higher, more anxious-sounding than the tone she'd been using before.

Then, she speaks in a louder voice. "Shut up, Niki. You think I haven't thought of that?"

Is she talking to herself? Is she _nuts_?

"Is there... uh..." I tap her on the shoulder. She whirls, and the look she gives me could wither houseplants at fifty feet. "Is there someone else here?"

For a moment, she looks frightened. Then, she smiles sunnily. "Just D.L. Did you hear him skulking around?" She shouts. "Honey! We've got company!"

A lean, lanky black man with angular features appears in an open doorway. He's so tall that he has to duck to get into the doorframe. "Who are you?" he asks unceremoniously.

Mohinder goes up and introduces himself with his usual smooth professionalism. How he's not intimidated I don't know. These two are, together, the scariest-looking couple I've ever seen. In D.L.'s significant presence, though, Niki seems to melt. Her gun-toting babe schtick is a thing of the past. Now she's sweet as bubblegum, clinging to his arm and gushing about him and their genius kid. I feel a little sick to my stomach. It wasn't 48 hours ago that I'd seen this sort of future for myself. And Janice, and our kid. _Our_ kid. Hah. Now it's all been shattered. And here comes this perfect (if somewhat bad-ass) little family, stuck right under my nose as if to taunt me. I pout.

Then, as she's telling some other story about her son, I see very clearly what I couldn't see before. It's her voice, superimposed over itself, in her head. _Why are you telling him so much about Micah? If you're going to talk so much, why don't you tell him about yourself? And me? Why don't you tell him about what you've done to me!_

In her head. There's someone in her head. Someone _else_ in her head.

No wonder she laughed earlier. She's the most unusual thing about this family by far.

D.L. and Mohinder are busy discussing something. Sylar, science, something. It gives her a free moment, and she becomes suspicious. "What are you looking at?" she hisses.

I answer her question with a question. "Who's Jessica?"

I hear an inner gasp. Her eyes widen.

_You can hear me? Hey! Can you hear me?_

Then she smiles cattily. "You _are_ from Linderman, aren't you? Don't worry, I'm in control here. Niki bitches a lot, but she can't get out."

_Hey! You! Stop her! She's..._

I just nod.

A little later on, I ask to use the facilities before we hit the road again. Mohinder has apparently been unable to move this D.L. guy into participating in his research. He's perfectly content just being at home with his weird wife and his genius kid and his "molecular manipulation" (I don't know quite what that means, but it excited Mohinder a lot). Again, I'm feeling pretty sick. Good for him, really. Everyone else gets an accepting, loving family. I get a wife who cheats on me with my partner and then somehow makes everything my fault, including the fact that I completely unintentionally call her on her bullshit.

So Niki, or Jessica, or whoever, shows me where the bathroom is, and as I'm about to enter, she gasps, "Wait."

I turn back and it's a completely different person standing there. Her eyes are wide and wild, and she's pale. "I only have a minute," she says. "There's a picture in the second drawer of the bedside table. Put it on his pillow. He has to know it's not me."

I glance into the adjoining bedroom. "You... you're Niki, aren't you?"

"I'm..." Her face contorts, and she points toward the bathroom. "Are you blind? It's right there." Just like that, Jessica's back. And she seems not to have any idea what just happened. "Hurry up. Your friend's anxious to leave." She turns and marches back toward the kitchen. I get the distinct feeling it's not Mohinder who's itching to get us out of there.

Quick as I can move, I follow Niki's instructions. The photo is of some politician, a familiar-looking guy, surrounded by balloons. A boyfriend, perhaps? It doesn't matter, really. I'm as anxious to leave as she is to kick us out. I've had enough family time to last me a while.

* * *

The sun is going down as we leave Vegas, and we drive only another two hours, over the border of New Mexico and northeast into Utah. We find a town called Saint George, with a huge Mormon temple in the center, and Matt decides that we need to go get drunk. My lip curls at the thought of it, but he's in pain and I don't mind being a designated driver.

He's been silent most of the drive, watching the sun set behind the mountains. It's given me some time to reflect on our meeting this afternoon. The man D.L. showed me some of what he could do. I could hardly believe my eyes. It's one thing to see a boy you've dreamed about or to have your mind read, but it's quite another to actually see, with one's own eyes, human flesh going through glass and wood like it wasn't even there. My mind is humming with the impossible physics of it.

And yet more than that, his decision not to pursue any answers as to why he is the way he is perplexes me. He and his family seem perfectly content to simply accept him, and that's enough. I suppose that not everyone with these abilities is a lost soul, after all. It's possible to just live and let live. No, it's only Matt who is lost. He's searching for something, a place to belong, perhaps. No wonder he wanted to come on this journey. There's a proud American tradition of finding yourself on the open road, or so I've been led to believe. (I read Kerouac in university.)

Even though it was his idea, Matt laughs hysterically at the whole notion of there even being bars in Saint George. He swears he thought everyone in the state of Utah was a teetotaler with three wives. I don't know much about Utah or Mormonism, but that strikes me as painting with an awfully broad brush. "Jesus, live a little!" he says when I criticize his generalization. He slaps me on the back, and it takes me a few moments to get wind back in my lungs. He's rather strong. I'm a little afraid of what he might do when he _does_ get drunk.

But the first part of the evening he's fine. He munches, downs beers, shouts at the sports channel with a bunch of the other guys. As for me, I sit at the end of the bar and write down my impressions for the day, keeping a half an eye on him. The bartender raises an eyebrow at me but is silent, continually feeding me club sodas. She's sort of smiling at me a little. Eventually I feel compelled to smile back. She takes this as an encouraging sign and starts sidling toward me.

It's at that moment that Matt suddenly remembers I'm in the room, and he comes over scowling and drapes an arm over my shoulders. "Hey, dun make me jealous," he slurs. "You're goin' home with me tonight, remmmber?" He loses a syllable of the last word entirely.

I pull at his arm and grunt, "Get off me." I'm suddenly drowning in him. His breath is foul with beer. He hasn't shaved in far too long. I don't think he's used deodorant, either. Secondhand smoke has sunk into his clothes. His eyes are glittering as he tilts his head to look at me and grin stupidly. He's like a big lead blanket. Heavy and hot and a huge bother.

And I'm loving every moment of the contact. I don't want him to let go. I breathe in the breath and the odor and the beer and tobacco like it's oxygen. Like I need it to keep living.

I want him.

Damn.

This wasn't supposed to happen. He's a pet project, a guinea pig for my research. A friend at best, barely even an acquaintance, really. He's also a man, which makes things infinitely more complicated. My brain's reeling (Ca, cā, ci, cī, cu, cū!) but my heart is throbbing. Not to mention other parts of my anatomy. Damn, damn, damn.

I should have seen this danger coming from the start. From the moment I heard his voice like a coil wrapped around me and thought I might melt into my chair. He's a married man, for God's sake. A married man who's disillusioned and confused and looking for meaning. A married man who has somehow slid right into my life like the interlaced fingers of lovers holding hands, who has made me feel warm and energized and oh, God, this is not helping me beat down the very unhelpful imagined sensations that are popping into my head. His hands touching me. His weight on me. That honey-and-sand voice, whispering things that are dirty and beautiful all at once. Damn.

I can't afford to act on this attraction. I'm afraid of what might happen. Part of me is afraid of rejection, true, but part is afraid of success. I don't want to use him when he's vulnerable. I don't want to face his regret. And he deserves better than a fling with a near-stranger while he's grieving over a dead marriage.

Besides, I don't think a fling would satisfy me. He's so very real. Solid and masculine. Full of all the problems and anxieties of modern humanity. Not just real-- he's _human._ The things that make me want him aren't just things like his arms, straining to lift his bulging suitcase as he lifts it into the trunk, or the faraway look in his eyes as he gazes at the endless mountains. I want him also for his breezy explanation of his political philosophy, for his fumbling troubles with identity and relationships, for his insight, for his outlook. I keep hearing the word _forever_ whispering around in my head, and I wonder if the bartender has spiked the club soda I've been sipping, because looking at him is making me dizzy.

Damn. And damn again.

Now the bartender's smiling at me again, and I'm afraid she thinks my heavy breathing is for her. Or, worse, she knows I've just sort of had a bit of an epiphany. But when she comes over, all she says is, "I think your friend's had enough." And she's right. Matt is looking rather trashed. Rather like he's about to fall over onto the floor if I am not there right now. So I get there. Somehow. And I sling that leadlike arm around my shoulder again.

And I still love it.

The bartender points out a motel across the way, and waves cheerily as we exit the bar. Matt's weeping and laughing all at once, his words a mess of jumbled emotions in my ear. "Not even my kid for chrissake... that bitch... my fault she cheat... stupid mind... stoppit with zaalphabet or 'tever... shoulda married you... smart guy... cute.. wanna make out?..."

I scream the Tamil alphabet at the top of my mental lungs to avoid saying _yes, yes, yes._

We enter the motel. The lobby is drab and Matt's looking like he's about to throw up, so I throw down money for a room and we grab keys and head upstairs.

It's then that I realize just what kind of a motel that bartender has sent us to. What the hell was she thinking, anyway?

I sit down on the couch, which is shaped like a rather ghastly pair of lips, and put my head in my hands as Matt grins hugely and starts wandering around the room like a three-year-old. "Dude!" he exclaims, peeking into the bathroom. "Everything's pink! Hey, M'inder--" he's lost a syllable of my name, too, I see-- "they's got _condoms_ in the cab'net! and ... what's this stuff... eww. It's all... woo, it tingles!"

"Matt, go to sleep, you're dead drunk," I shout, not daring to look up.

He bounces on the bed. Satin red coverlet and heart-shaped pillows. It's absolutely disgusting. At least there isn't a mirror on the ceiling, although there is one just behind the fuzzy excuse for a headboard. Next to the handcuffs. Oh, dear.

"M'inder, c'mon over. Les' make out," he wheezes. I stay stock still. "D'n be so shy. Ya think I dun like guys? C'mon. I'm from C'fornia! 'Sall groovy!"

Well. That's a revelation I could have done without at this point in the evening. Or my life. Or the history of the world. I throw a pillow at him. "Go to sleep, Matt," I shout, and stretch out on the Lips Couch, trying not to imagine the monstrous plush mouth opening in the middle of the night and swallowing me whole.

He eventually complies, and I rise long enough to turn off the lights. Before I return to bed, I stare at him a moment in the darkness. His lips are slightly pursed, and he's drooling. All I want to do is crawl into bed beside him and have him hold me the way he's holding that poor defenseless saliva-coated pillow. How on earth did this start, and when did it get so strong? I've known the man three days. I feel as though I've known him my whole life. I'm scared to death.

For now, I do what any man in my position would do. I return to my makeshift bed and proceed to not sleep.

* * *

Big red bed. Big fat Matt on the big red bed. Jesus, I can rhyme!

Must remember to never get drunk again. Damn voices in head all evening long. Can't keep 'em out. Stupid fuckers cheating on their girlfriends in that stupid bar. I don't wanna hear what noises she made you fucks, get out of my head. Bartender looking at Mohinder like that. Fuck. Leave him alone. Fuckin' ass. Sends us to this bullshit motel with KY and shit in the cabinets.

And now finally quiet, alone, and dark. Parkman, in the dark, man. I'm a fucking poet. A poet who gets insomniac when he gets drunk. Damn it. I'm even a weird drunk. I should see a doctor 'bout that.

The Doctor is in, after all.

Heh. He's awake, too. He's awake and thinking about me. None of that bullshit foreign alphabet if you think I'm sleeping. Pah.

The hell's he keep thinking my name for?

What the hell kinda weird world is this that I live in? I disgust my own wife after eleven years, but meet a guy the same week and he's already lying there thinking...

_God, I wish... your hand... that big mouth of..._

I'm kinda turned on now. He's such a pretty boy. But he said no when I asked him to make out with me.

Yeah, maybe that's kinda cause I was drunk.

_Am. Am_ drunk.

And married. And for all he knows straight. And holy shit, this man thinks like a phone sex operator.

_God, if only... I want you_

I'm a sexy beast. What can I say?

And Mohinder is beautiful...

Beautiful, sweet guy...

Never met a guy like him...

Imagine this pillow's him. All warm and sweet...

I can fall asleep like this.

Beautiful man.

**:to be continued:**


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's note: This is a PG-13-rated version of Chapter 3, (significantly!) edited to put the fic in compliance with fanfiction dot net's rules. To read the full fic (original rating: NC-17), please visit tiptoe39 dot livejournal dot com /536976.html._

A knock and a gruff shout awaken us both in the morning. "Checkout time," comes the voice from the other side of the door. "Gitcher clothes on and pay up."

I scramble to my feet. Matt is rubbing sleep from his eyes with one hand and clutching his head with the other. He grimaces and puts his head back down onto the pillow.

"Matt. Matt, wake up." I hurry to the bed, shake his shoulders. He's warm with sleep, so much so it surprises me. For an instant all I can think of is tucking my head into one of those broad shoulders and shutting out the outside world. But the man outside the door is getting restless. "We're coming!" I shout, annoyed.

"You were s'posed to do that last night. Now you should be going!" he snaps back, and the double entendre hits me like a hammer on a gong. I resonate from the center outward, shaking a little more each moment as the realization of just how right he is goes through me and fades.

Matt's not the only one who gave into unthinking temptation last night. I look at my hand on his skin for a moment and remember. For the briefest moment, my eyes shut and I can feel the power of that fantasy again.

But then Matt bats at my hand, and I shake him once more. In a fit of sleepy pique, he pushes me over onto the bed. I tumble, end up tangled in his arms, his face very nearly touching mine. One of his hands is gripping my upper arm. It's hot and I am going to die. Right here, right now. I am dying of wanting him. His warmth. His lips. This man is so very attractive. My fingers are itching in their sockets to just reach out and touch him.

His eyes slowly widen as he realizes the precarious position we're in. Then, those eyes start to close, going half-lidded and dark. Two eclipses burning in the white sky. I see him swallow.

And then the door flies open. "Checkout means checkout, lovebirds," mutters the man without even looking. We both turn toward the door and watch him go on to the next room.

A half-hour later, and Matt is sipping coffee, sunglasses on and head propped up by an upturned palm. I'm looking at him over the menu. That was one hell of a way to wake up. My bones are still trembling.

Nothing has changed. I'm still feeling all the same things I was last night, and even more so. Excitement. Anticipation. Something that has no name. My hand is shaking as I reach for my mug of tea. I'm sure I'm about to spill it on myself.

I need to close my eyes and concentrate on my goals. We're driving most of the way today, through Utah and Idaho. At least, that was the plan. We've gotten a very late start.

The name on my notepad is Dale Smither. I called and reached an answering machine with a husky woman's voice on it. She apparently runs a garage up in Bozeman, Montana. Perhaps she'll be more cooperative than Mr. Hawkins was. He didn't even give me a DNA sample. Not that I can blame him. Living with that loose cannon must have taught him to be very wary.

Coffee perks Matt up considerably, and the waffles he orders do even more for his mood. He offers to drive the first leg, which is impressive for a man who was hung over not an hour ago. He must have considerable stamina. Oh, I should not be thinking such things.

Before we set out, he rummages in his overstuffed suitcase a while. "I thought I'd be listening to this all pissy in some hotel room," he says excitedly, holding up a small booklet of CDs. "But I'm actually going to get to enjoy it. Especially driving through Lower East Hicksville, Buttrump, U.S.A."

I have no idea what he's on about. "East what? Where? Who?"

He rolls his eyes and grins. "This," he says, holding the disc case in a flat palm with fingers curled around the end, "is my angry-at-the-world mix. Volumes One through Five. I started putting it together after I failed my detective's exam the second time, but it was also right after the election, so there's a lot of political stuff on there, too. It's guaranteed to shock the religious fundies in this area. Do you mind if I play it extra loud when we go through a town?"

I give him the most frightening frown I can muster. "_Yes._" He just shrugs.

When we set off and he pops the disc in, the first song that comes up he swears is the "angriest, sexiest, weirdest song ever written." He sings along, and I listen to his voice go hoarse and catch on the longer notes.

_I know these blues are gonna rub me raw  
Every single cure seems to be against the law_

He tilts his head while singing some of the nonsense words that are sprinkled into the lyrics. I like his voice a lot better than that of the man on the recording. Some of the lyrics make me blush. As we leave the city behind and travel into what seems to be an infinity of red mountains, he shakes his finger on the steering wheel and sings,

_I don't want your pity or your fifty-dollar words  
I don't share your need to discuss the absurd_

I feel, oddly enough, like he's singing to me. And I'm somewhat chastened. Have I been so condescending? It's possible. I suppose I was rather harsh with him last night. But the only other option I could see at the time was to take him up on his offer to "make out," as he so delicately phrased it. And while that might have made me happy in the short term, I fear what the morning after would have been like.

* * *

The morning after? _That's_ what you're worried about? After what I heard last night? Jesus. That's it, this boy's getting an education.

Oh, this is gonna be delicious. Screw traumatizing Utah, this guy needs some serious traumatizing if we're going to spend the whole day in the car together.

Woke up this morning feeling like I'd just been crapped on. Everything I wanted, gone. Felt Janice's absence like a missing limb. God, if I had hacked off my own arm, it couldn't have hurt more. But then all of a sudden I had a faceful of this guy. Mohinder Suresh. What a name that is. And everything's been looking up ever since.

My eyes flicker over to his face. He is undoubtedly a beautiful man. Feel like I don't know him, though. Gonna have to loosen him up somehow. Bridge the gap. And nothing to get someone talking like the supreme tragedy of having to listen to music you're very not ready for. Hold on tight.

"Life'll Kill Ya" just wrapped up, and he looks kind of distressed. I don't blame him. That's too much Zevon for someone who's not used to him. It was a great couple of songs for a dead depressed cop from California, but maybe they do angst differently in India. Anyway, time to lighten things up. Track 4 it is.

The opening guitar scares the crap out of him. Watching him jump makes me laugh. And then, I'm singing (or, rather, shouting) along, and he's staring at me, horrified. His jaw is flapping aimlessly.

"Dare I ask what we are listening to?" he asks tremulously, and he flinches when I throw up my hands along with the music. In answer, I just turn to him and sing at the top of my lungs:

_I wanna take you to a gay bar, gay bar, gay bar..._

I haven't had this much fun in ages. I haven't felt this _free_ in ages. Maybe this is all I needed. Some company, an open road, gorgeous scenery, wild music. Being myself. I really feel like I'm being myself now, even though a day ago I'd thought I didn't even know who that was. It's so easy to see now. Is that Mohinder's fault? I haven't felt like I've been pretending with him, at all. I haven't needed to. Maybe I'm hamming it up a little bit now, but that's just because his shocked expression is so amusing.

Except now he's stopped being shocked and is breaking into a smile. A grin. And now he's giggling madly. And all of a sudden my tongue is a lump of lead. I can barely breathe when he smiles. Is it just because I know he's attracted to me? Am I imagining that I feel the same way? Is it something about this sprawling landscape-- the angular, ancient mountains-- that just makes everything primal and intense?

Did I say I felt free? What I meant to say was out of control. I feel totally out of control.

But I love it. Holy hell, do I ever love it.

* * *

"Las Vegas."  
"Somalia."  
"All right, if you're going to go global on me, Antarctica."  
"Can you do that?"  
"Why not?"  
"Because we could end up on A forever."  
"Why's that bad?"  
"Oh, I don't know. Africa, then."  
"Asia."  
"America."  
"See? It's all A names!"  
"Fine, fine, Amarillo."  
"O... Osaka."  
"Now it's _your_ fault we're back to A."

As games go, this one passes the time well. Even if he doesn't seem to care for variety. We've crossed into Idaho a while back, and it's midafternoon, sliding toward sunset. We're surrounded by mountains and wilderness. I'm driving now, having switched with Matt a little after Salt Lake City. And as he says, it's my fault we're back to A.

"Albuquerque," he grumbles.  
"England."  
"Denmark."  
"K..." It slips out. "Kanyakumari."  
"Wait, what? Where? What letter does that end with?"

"Um... I. It's in India." My brain is suddenly dead. Maybe it's the dryness of the scenery, but I find myself missing those crystalline waters. Even though it is a place of grief.

"India, then. Now we're back to A." He glances at me. "Are you all right?"

I shake my head, trying to get the nostalgia out. "Yes, fine. I'm sorry."

"What kind of a place is it?"

"Where?"

"That place you mentioned. Kenya whatever."

"Kanyakumari." The word makes me sad to say.

"Right, that. You got all quiet there for a minute. Do you have good memories of it or something?"

I think my eyes are wet. Perhaps it's just because the sun is bright.

"It's a burial ground," I say slowly. The half-formed words on his lips die there without a sound. He's silent, listening. "When my father was murdered, I returned there to scatter his ashes."

"You must have cared a lot for him, to go halfway across the world to do that," he says weakly, as though he's struggling to find something more meaningful to say.

"Sometimes I worry it was selfishness on my part," I say, and the smile on my face feels bitter and tastes salty. "I couldn't persuade him to come home in life, so selfishly I drag him back there in death."

"At least you had the chance to do that," he says. His voice is lower than I've heard it today, and there's almost a snarl around the words. All of a sudden he is a jealous beast guarding a treasure. "My dad might already be dead, or he could die tomorrow, and I'd never know. The last time I saw him, I was thirteen. I probably wouldn't recognize him on the street."

I'm surprised. He didn't strike me as the kind of man to have problems with his father. But now that I think of it, doesn't that explain what happened in California? Is he running away? Does he think he can't escape the cycle and is leaving now, before his child gets the chance to know him?

"No, it's not like that!" he bursts out, and the words hit me between the eyes. That's right. He can hear thoughts. I really, really need to work on my alphabet chanting. "I just... I don't know if I miss him or if I'm glad he walked out or what. My dad was kind of a scumbag even when he was around," he admits. "There wasn't a lot of role model there. Just about everything he told me ended up being just... illusion."

I'm speaking before I even know what I'm doing. "My father spent his whole life chasing illusions. Or so I thought. That's what I believed them to be, just images of what he wanted to find. I never knew the truth, the real truth of it, until it was too late. All the things he kept from me. The things he'd seen and experienced. If I'd listened, if I'd been more understanding or more open-minded, could I have kept him from leaving? Could I have kept him safe?"

Outside my window, red cliffs and sagebrush fill the landscape. The whole vista is red and scratchy beneath a blue-red sky, like a huge eye that's raw and red from crying. It's almost hard to look at.

Matt chuckles. "We really have led parallel lives," he says, and takes a deep breath. "Thank you," he says with some of that oxygen, and the rest of it leaves his lungs with a cleansing whoosh.

"For what?" I glance at him, puzzled.

"For listening. I haven't talked about my dad in a long time." A smile quirks into existence on the side of his mouth and disappears again. "It's not so easy, usually. But you kind of made it easy. So thanks."

He touches my arm gently as he says the last word, and the entirety of my pulse seems to gather right into that area. I swallow. He looks at his own hand on my elbow and seems to ponder it. Then his fingers move, smooth and slow like molasses, down my forearm to lightly cover my hand on the gear shift. His hand is so warm that it's nearly suffocating. Oh, no. Where was I? Somewhere around ce. Ce, cē, cai, co, cō, cau.

He looks at me a second. Can he read what he's doing to me? Then he (thankfully!) lifts his hand and claps his palms together. "All right. Enough deep thoughts. Time for some more fun," he says, grinning. I have a momentary suspicion that he's got an ulterior motive. But he's just picking another track on his CD and swaying with the music. Honestly, what else could he possibly play? More offensive, profanity-laden music? I think I've been immunized by the past four or five hours of it.

It only takes until the first chorus for me to realize I'm sorely mistaken.

_I make a dirty little religion out of lovin'  
I'll make a dirty little convert out of you_

He growls the words, throaty and low. A little off-key, but that hardly matters. My mouth goes dry at the images that voice sends through my head.

_Dirty little one  
Learn the fundamentals of desire_

I want that voice in my ear as he lies on top of me, whispering heated blasphemy into my shoulder. I want those strong arms holding me down, taut and tight. I want to taste every feature on that wide face, his stubble grazing beneath my tongue. Oh, God, I want so much I can barely see straight.

_It's a dirty little religion, hallelujah_

His lips pucker around the "lu" like a kiss. That's it. I turn off at the next exit. It's either that or drive us straight off a cliff.

* * *

Sunset, and we've stopped at a scenic overlook where cliffs are hanging over faraway plains that seem to ripple like an auburn sea. Mohinder has one of those battery-powered water heaters, and after he empties a few water bottles into it, we get busy slurping ramen noodles. I feel like I'm twenty again. Two guys on the open road, eating complete crap and finding ourselves. Except for it's not really us we're finding. He's here finding me, and others like me, and I'm finding--

Well, maybe I'm finding myself a bit. Better late than never, right?

I wish I had a guitar so I could play it and sing. I don't even know how to play the guitar. It's just that this scenery needs to have "Blowin' in the Wind" playing in the background. Before I know it, I'm humming.

How many roads _must_ a man walk down, after all? I don't know, but I guess this is one of 'em.

He's looking at me with a slightly amused glint in his eyes. "What?" I pretend I'm horribly outraged that he dares to stare. His smile widens to a grin. "What are you looking at me like that for?"

"Honestly?" he says. "I'm thinking how glad I am to have met you."

My heart makes a funny noise and leaps in my chest. I worry it's going to bruise itself against my ribs at this point. "Well. Thanks, I think."

He's embarrassed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...It's just that you're probably the most..." He waves his hand in the air as though fishing for invisible words. "The most _sincere_ person I've met in a long time."

The first thing that comes to mind is, "I don't know, you've met that Petrelli guy. He sort of corners the market on sincerity."

"Or madness. One of the two." His smile is sardonic. "Peter is... naive. He wants to save the world."

"Yeah, he mentioned." I scratch my head, coming to sit beside him on the dusty ground. "Weird guy."

"I hope he does." Now he looks sort of sad.

I don't know why I ask. "Do _you_ want to save the world?"

He turns to me, his mouth a round ring of surprise. He draws in a breath, then exhales. "Perhaps not," he says. "Perhaps I don't know what I want to do, exactly." Tilting his head up to catch the light, he half-smiles. "What do _you_ want to do?"

"Nothing special," I shrug. "Maybe just catch the bad guys. Have a decent life with a decent family. Maybe... Maybe I want to find a place where I can really be myself."

And then, despite myself, I add, "A place like this."

His hair is edged in red against the sun.

"Are you being yourself now?" His voice is barely a whisper, and his thoughts are even softer. _With me?_

I stare at him. "Yeah," I say, my voice mild. "I think I am."

The sunset on his face makes him look like he's dipped in gold.

He's very good-looking. Seriously.

And then, I've kissed him. I don't even remember it happening. I remember leaning in toward him, but I thought it was to get a better view. I had no idea, really. But now we've kissed. How bizarre.

He looks at me with blank eyes.

"I'm sorry," I hear myself say. "You're just so pretty." (God, how hopeless am I?)

"I'm what?" His voice is a ghost of itself. His lips barely move. They should move more. Really. They look as though they're trembling with the desire to move.

I fumble. "You're..." It barely escapes my throat, which is awfully dry all of a sudden. He's staring at me and kind of tilting his head, and it's like the first step in a dance. I know exactly how to follow-- tilt my own head. And then he leans in a little bit, and then I lean in a little bit and we stare. I try to find reality again. "You're--"

And then he kisses my lips and if I completely forgot our first kiss, I'll never forget our second. It burns itself permanently into my body like a brand. I've never had a kiss this sexual before. He's doing things with his tongue-- God, his tongue is in my mouth-- that are orgasmic. I've never been good at French kissing but he makes it an art.

His hands are on my shoulders and he's standing me up and walking me backwards and my back is slamming against the side of the car. I'm being leaned against the side of the car, by an absolutely gorgeous man with dark skin and hair who is kissing me half to death and not thinking anything verbal. Maybe not thinking anything at all.

So I know exactly what we're doing. But when he stops, looks at me, and gasps, "What are we doing?" I forget.

"I don't know," I breathe. My lips miss his. They're itching, yearning for him already. My hands are around his waist. His wrists are flexed, the heels of his hands against my shoulders. Pinning me to the car.

He looks me up and down. He's got to be able to see how turned on I am. I should be embarrassed.

But then he's kissing me again for a blisteringly hot second, and I close my eyes and make a small noise. Where did that noise come from? I don't even know.

He pulls back again and I'm left gasping. His stare is so intense I can barely look. But I can't look away. It's like staring into sunlight.

"I don't want to stop," he says.

So we don't stop.

* * *

"Oh, God," he whines, "I ache. My legs won't move."

I stare at my pants in the dirt. They are unwearable now. I'll need another pair. I help him to his feet, and he really does wobble a little. "That's a good thing, though. Right?" I ask.

He touches his lips to mine briefly. "Yes. A very good thing."

I'm still warm all over, even though it's cold now. Even though I'm still not wearing a stitch. I lean against him, let his warmth overwhelm me. Now it's my turn to whine. "I don't want to put my clothes back on."

He laughs. "Stay naked, then," he says. "Let's drive to Montana naked. Give this Dale woman a thrill."

I picture that scenario. Poor mechanic coming out from underneath a car to discover two naked men standing in her garage. I think they make movies about that occasionally. They don't play in first-run theatres. "I don't think so," I say, raking my fingers through his disheveled hair. "I'm not eager to share this view with anyone. It's my privilege to see you like this."

I want to elaborate, to tell him how beautiful his skin is pale in the moonlight and how I love the line of his arms and shoulders and the flush of his face, a warm pink in contrast to the cold brick red of the stones. But when I step back to look at him, my breath catches in my throat and I can't speak.

He looks puzzled. "You know, anyone else says something like that and I'd roll my eyes. But you... you make me believe it."

His brow is furrowed as though he can't understand how that could possibly be. It's the expression of a man who's never before felt sure of himself, who's understanding himself for the first time. I get to be part of that. It makes me shudder and almost tear up. "God. Matt, I..."

_I'm crazy about you,_ I think desperately.

I don't know if he hears it, because he just smiles.

* * *

I drive us another half-hour until Mohinder points out a motel and we stop for the night. It's too dark for the fellow at the front to see how dusty we are. I suppose that's good.

We get a single room. Of course.

I shower first. When he goes in the shower, I lie on the bed and all of my insecurities come flooding back. My mind's full of a million questions. What have I done? What have I left behind? What have I jumped into?

He's a wonderful man, true, but am I ready for this? How do I know this connection isn't completely superficial? I lived a decade and a half with someone without ever realizing just how much she didn't get me. Will he get me? Will we be able to move beyond the games and the idiocy and just be together? Or will it all end in broken trust and betrayals and jealousy and running away like it always has before?

I'm shivering a little with the possibility when he comes out of the shower. But when he turns out the light and curls up behind me, something inside me is mollified. I sigh into the pillow.

He whispers in the dark. "I don't regret this. I want you to know that."

I close my eyes and fight back the sudden tears. "I hope you never will."

**Next: An unexpected face**


	4. Chapter 4

I awaken with heat and sunlight and an unfamiliar sensation of heaviness. I'm all tangled up and can't move. Matt. That's right. He's here. He's so close to me. We...

My breath catches. Fear floods me. This wasn't why I came out there. I have an important reason for this trip. One that could save lives. This is not a romantic sojourn or a descent into debauchery. I need to find these people. Warn them. Answer their questions, if I can. I didn't fly across the country to have a torrid affair with a man I just met, who is, among other things, married.

Then his eyes open and he smiles at the sight of me, and all my good intentions go flying madly out the proverbial window.

"Hi," he says, the sound tripping over a croak in his throat.

"Good morning," I answer.

It's perfectly natural that we kiss. There isn't even another option.

His hands run down the length of my arms and it's like being touched by sunshine. I lose my ability to think altogether.

He makes slow, gentle love to me in that motel room bed. I'm warm and covered with him. His hand wrapped around me is like liquid. The way he moves is like music. What we do is all about flowing and sharing, about beauty and blossoming. There's no tension, no gravity. Nothing but the two of us. He slides over me and I slide in the sheets. Everything moves. We proceed from warmth to fullness, open up, shudder with release, and sink back into idyll.

I want so badly to just stay in these arms forever. Never mind the rest of the world. Never mind save-the-cheerleader or are-you-on-the-list or this-is-destiny or any of the other phrases I've heard echoing in my dreams. Leave them all behind. Just run away to a new, secret place and live in bliss.

But that isn't fair. I am a man of science, and in science one must face unpleasant truths. One of which being that we still have four hours to drive before Montana. So off we go.

It's far colder today, and as we drive up past the state line, we start to see frost patches on the grass. We stop for coffee and I get a jacket from my suitcase. Matt has to buy one; he didn't exactly pack for this weather. He grumbles a little bit, saying he's worried about his finances and about a friend who called him in the middle of the night. I must have slept through it. Well, I _was_ pretty much exhausted.

Eventually the saintly device known as GPS takes us up a hill to a rugged-looking, secluded garage. A few broken-down cars, coated with frost and rust, squat outside like aged guard dogs. We get out, marvel a little that there's actually snow on the ground, and enter, shouting our greetings.

There is a figure underneath a car that's jacked up in the middle of the room. I assume it's Dale. She seems to be engrossed in wrenching or twisting or doing something of some sort. "Dale Smither? Pardon me. Ms. Smither?" I shout, peering underneath to catch a glimpse as Matt looks around. She's wearing a welder's mask. It's impossible to tell anything about her from this angle.

Finally the figure pauses, sets the wrench down, and comes sliding out from beneath the vehicle. The figure straightens up and raises the mask.

Dale Smither is a man.

Well. This is a surprise.

"I'm sorry," says Mohinder, "I don't mean to interrupt. I was looking for Dale--"

"You found him," says the man, who is light and lean, with heavy eyebrows and doe eyes. "You're Dr. Suresh, right? I got your message. So sorry I didn't have a chance to call back, but I've been looking forward to meeting you." He removes an oil-stained glove and shakes Mohinder's hand with a winning smile that makes me bristle. Something's not quite right

_Chandra's son, no mistake,_ I hear him think. I frown, and he seems to catch my hostility and process it. "I'm sorry, who's your friend?" he asks Mohinder, eying me cautiously.

"Matt Parkman," I say, thrusting my hand forward. He looks at it, then grudgingly shakes. I immediately want a shower. His hands are too delicate, too finely groomed for a man who's spent his life working on cars. Not a cuticle out of place. They're so clean that I feel dirty.

"A pleasure," he says through barely moving lips. "So, Doctor," he goes on, turning to Mohinder so decisively that I feel immediately cut out of the loop, "what can I do for you?"

Mohinder stammers. "I-- it's actually more of what I can do for you," he says.

"Who was the woman on your answering machine?" I ask, more to remind him I'm still here than anything.

"My former receptionist," he says blandly.

"Receptionist?" I look around. It hardly seems like the kind of place that requires an office pool.

"Things get busy in the summer, with everyone getting their inspections renewed," he shrugs. "Unfortunately, I found her rifling through my things and had to let her go. I just haven't gotten around to changing the outgoing message yet. So what brings you up here, Mr. Parkman?" He smiles, and I have a sudden image of a spider unfolding its web.

"Matt is like you," Mohinder jumps in. "You both have a certain genetic marker that causes you to have particular abilities not shared by most of your fellow human beings."

Dale leans toward me, suddenly very interested. "You don't say," he breathes. "So... what is your ability, Matt?" The familiarity makes me shudder.

By way of answer, I turn to Mohinder. "He knew your father," I say.

Dale's eyes widen briefly. Mohinder says, "Really?"

"I read his book," shrugs Dale. "It was very influential to me. In a way, I consider Chandra Suresh to be the man who changed my life."

The way he talks is almost like a chant, slightly hypnotizing. It brings to mind shadows and sharp angles and smooth lines. "Before I read Chandra Suresh's theories," he narrates, "I didn't really understand what was happening to me. I felt so alone, like I was strange or defective somehow. But now I understand." His smile grows broad. "It's evolution. It's the destiny of mankind to evolve, to become superior to its previous self. I have learned to embrace that destiny."

Mohinder is enthralled by this narration. I feel a little ill, personally. "What I can do must surely be just the tip of the iceberg," Dale continues excitedly. "After all, I'm just able to hear sounds that are very far away. I can't imagine what it's like to be like your friend here and hear _thoughts._ Although I'd love to know." He smiles at me, his eyes angling up from beneath the thick, knitted eyebrows, and I feel a little like a pig being sized up for its suitability to become a Christmas ham. Or something like that.

"Would you mind if I asked you for a DNA sample?" Mohinder says, drawing the small disposable kit from his bag. Dale takes it, but then the phone in his front office rings, and he hurries off to grab it. I can barely wait for him to disappear.

"I don't like him," I say, hurrying to Mohinder's side.

He looks at me, wide-eyed. "Why on earth not?"

"He's creepy. I don't like the way he's looking at you. He knows too much about you. You shouldn't trust him so easily."

"I don't really want to hear about trusting too easily from the married man who slept with me after knowing me less than a week," Mohinder snaps. I cringe visibly, and he relents. "I'm sorry. But he seems like a decent man, and I can't help thinking that you're jealous."

"It's not that! It's just..." I sigh. "Something about him rubs me the wrong way."

"You're thinking too hard," he chides, and his hand takes mine briefly. The contact is still so new and overwhelming, and I flush. His fingers slide through mine and drop away. "It's flattering, but... don't borrow trouble. Please."

When Dale returns to give Mohinder his DNA sample, I look at the two of them earnestly discussing some theory or other and wonder. Perhaps I _am_ just jealous. But this man's eyes are so plain and innocent one minute, then so fierce and penetrating the next. Like he can turn on and off at will. All I can think about is the story of the wolf in sheep's clothing.

So when he looks at me and thinks very deliberately, _If you can read thoughts, that means I can talk to you without your doctor friend knowing. Am I right?_

Discomfort bubbles in my gut, but I nod. He smiles like a child with a new toy. _I'll remember that._

* * *

Dale offers to tune up our car before we leave. Matt sits inside-- weak to the cold-- and looks out a frosted window at us as we converse. Dale is a bright and inquisitive sort. He says he started fixing cars when he was just a boy. "I've always loved to see how things work," he explains. "Speaking of which--" He straightens up and peers over the hood. "How did you find me, anyway? I mean, I understand the basics, but... is there some way you can actually figure out where to find people with special abilities?"

"I don't completely understand the algorithm," I respond, "but my father, before his death, was able to locate about fifty individuals world wide. You were on that list, as was Matt."

"A list." His eyes glow with possibilities. "How I'd love to see it. Not that the names would mean anything to me, of course, but still."

"My father died trying to protect the people on that list," I say bitterly. "I'm merely trying to finish what he started."

"By warning us about this man named Sylar?"

"Yes." I nod resolutely.

"But you don't know who he is, do you? Or what he looks like. He could be anyone. He could even be your friend in there." He shrugs a shoulder toward Matt's face behind the glass. "Just waiting for the opportunity to kill you like he killed your father." His eyes flash dark for a second, and for a moment I worry that Matt may be right about him.

But the moment passes. "That's impossible," I say, shaking my head and smiling. "Matt is a police officer. He's been trying to find Sylar as well."

"Or so he tells you," Dale says. "How do you know for sure? What else has he told you that you've chosen to just take his word for?"

_The baby isn't mine._

The thought is in my head before I know it. I curse myself for even daring to think it.

"Look, I don't mean to pick on your friend," Dale says, slamming down the hood and shrugging apologetically. "But you really should be careful, Mohinder. This killer could be anywhere. He could even be me."

I smile. "_That_, I highly doubt." I clap him on the shoulder. "But thank you for the warning."

"You should have someone looking out for you," he insists. "You shouldn't put all your trust in one person. It's not safe."

I walk toward the doorway to the small garage, intent on telling Matt that we are ready to go, but Dale follows, Quick as a rabbit, he's jumped in front of me. "I've always wanted to see New York," he says. "And I could help. With the driving. And if the car breaks down." There's real excitement in his shining eyes. "To think that all this time I've been dreaming of what it would be like to meet Chandra Suresh and find out just what I really am, and then you find me. It's got to be destiny." He seizes both of my hands. "You can't come all this way and just leave again. Let me come with you."

"I don't think that's a very good idea," I warn, glancing through the window at Matt. He's frowning. "It's nothing personal, Dale. But I don't think Matt would be very kind to you."

His voice gets very low. "I can handle him." Again, that flash, but then it's gone, and I worry that Matt's paranoia is affecting me, because Dale's all excited schoolboy again. "Don't you see? It's a perfect arrangement. Suppose I'm really a bad guy. Your friend is there, so I can't do you any harm. Right? Now suppose-- just suppose- he's the bad guy in disguise. That means I'm here to protect you. Either way, you'll be safe."

I look at him. I don't know why he's so sure that I am in mortal danger, but he's right about one thing: I will be safer if it's not just the two of us on this trip. Matt is proving to be a very significant distraction. I need to be reminded why I'm doing this. I need to get back to New York, get the DNA samples processed, and figure out the key to my father's research so I can warn these people that a killer may be after them. Perhaps Dale's presence will keep me focused.

"Let me talk to him," I say.

* * *

"He wants to what!?" The words are out of my mouth before Mohinder can even start talking. I heard him thinking it as he came in. It had to whirl in my mind another moment before I could even process it. And I still cut him off before a single word. "No way. No fucking way."

"I knew you'd say that," he says, his eyes burning. So I'm predictable. So what? That's a good thing. It's unpredictable assholes like this guy that are the problem.

"So why would you think for a second I'd be OK with it?" The truth is, I'm not all that concerned about me and the guy not getting along. It's Mohinder I'm worried about.

Ted called last night. He said he'd met someone who had information on Bennet's operation. Wanted me to meet him in Texas to see if we couldn't corner the bastard. I want to know what he found out, and I'm afraid for whoever this new person is who's in the mix. Being around Ted is like being on a bridge with a suicidal guy who can never get down from the railing. It's stay up there or jump, and my job around him is to keep delaying and delaying his inevitable... meltdown, for lack of a better word. I can handle him, and luckily enough he hasn't had too much other human contact since his wife died. But the wrong person comes into his life, and, well, boom.

So what happens if I have to leave to take care of Ted because he's threatening to go nuclear in Texas? And Dale and Mohinder end up trekking cross-country alone? Mohinder could end up in big trouble. And there's something about this whole setup that strikes me as very, very wrong. I can't quite name it yet, but...

Oh, hello. Mohinder has his arms around my waist. There's a gorgeous brown face in mine. "What do I need to do for you to trust me?" he's asking. The plaintive note in his voice is making me want to cry.

I touch his face. So smooth. "It's not you I don't trust," I say.

"Then prove it," he responds. "Have faith in me. I need you to."

"Why?" My voice sounds hollow. "Why do you want so badly to have this guy along?"

"Because I don't trust myself," he admits. His eyelashes are long, and he gazes at me through their curtain. I want to kiss him into submission when he looks at me like that. "I--" His voice falters. "I never expected this. To meet you. To feel... To like you as much as I do. It makes no sense." _I'm scared,_ he thinks.

This I understand. I understand it so much it hurts. I don't trust myself, either. This trip has turned into something so totally different from what I thought it would be. All because of him. What he does to me. How utterly defenseless I am around him, and how connected we seem to be. And now, to hear he's freaking out in the exact same way? How can we be this in sync, that our fears about each other are the same? It makes it all even more frightening.

"But I'm not here for you, Matt," he says slowly. "I keep forgetting that. I wish I was, but I'm not. I'm here because there are people out there who need answers and there's a killer out there who needs to be stopped. I can't afford to forget that."

I nod. "I know. I know you can't." A sigh escapes me. "Just... just tell me this isn't it for us. I don't..." I can't bring myself to tell him that I don't think I can live without touching him, that the moment we kissed I was addicted and can't remember what life was like before him, that I'm scared to death he'll ask for three rooms in the next motel and I'll be sleeping alone, dreaming of arms that are too far away. That isn't stuff a guy like me can say.

"It isn't," he says. "And I don't, either."

That ends up being the only comfort I can take. What else can I do? Stamp my foot like a child? No. Better not to worry him unless I can really put my finger on what's bothering me.

It's just an hour into the ride that I think I've nailed it. "Hey, Dale," I ask, "when did you say you fired that receptionist of yours?"

He shrugs. "I don't know, a few weeks back. Why?"

I feel cold hands pulling at the pit of my stomach. "No reason," I say, trying to sounds as light as I can. But I shut my eyes and picture the workbench at the corner of the garage. There was a purse beneath it, hung carefully on a peg near the wall. Like it belonged there.

* * *

It will be three more days of driving before we reach New York. We can make it as far as the North Dakota border tonight, but then we'll have a long day of driving ahead only to get as far as Minneapolis. And it will still be a full day and a half before we reach home. I'd wanted to stop for one more name in Minnesota, but I'm afraid these two might kill each other. I'm wondering if it might be better to bring Dale directly to the apartment, satisfy his curiosity, perform the tests, and then set him loose. Then Matt can...

Well. Matt can do whatever he pleases, I suppose.

Dale is a bit of a back-seat driver. He's constantly asking what the plan is, how far we're going tonight, wouldn't the back roads be faster. But he's also asking me about my father, about genetics, about evolution, and in general keeping me awake for the last leg of the drive. In contrast, Matt is silent, staring out the window and only asking an occasional perfunctory question. I know this is hard for him. I will just have to endure his sulking, I suppose.

When we finally pull off the road for the night, Dale asks if he can pay for the motel. He's so grateful, I end up letting him. He smiles broadly and marches up to the reception desk. "Three rooms, please."

"Two," I correct. "Two rooms."

Dale turns, surprised. "Are you sure?" I nod. I suppose I should have told him, but he is a smart man. He'll figure it out.

When we're safely inside the room, Matt sighs heavily as he sits on the bed. I climb up behind him, loop my arms around his shoulders. "Thank you," I say. "You were very admirable."

"He was talking into my head the whole time," he grumbles. "Asking me all kinds of questions that I couldn't answer. 'If you're a policeman, why are you all the way out here?' 'Do you really believe all the things Doctor Suresh is telling you?' 'You have a ring tan on your left hand. Are you leaving someone behind?' 'How come you couldn't read that street sign correctly?' It was awful."

"Well, it's over for tonight, so just get to sleep." I breathe. His proximity is exciting me. We've been at arms' length all day and all I want is for the tension in those big muscles of his to go to better use. This man could potentially turn me into a sex-crazed maniac.

I kiss the back of his neck, his ear. "Unless, of course, you don't feel like sleeping quite yet."

He doesn't respond other than heaving a long sigh.

"Matt. Look at me," I plead. I hate seeing him like this. Is this what happened when he and his wife lost their magic? Did he shut down this fully the moment he became suspicious? "Please."

He turns to face me. I lose my breath again at how beautiful he is, how every line of his face is so sincere and strong. He's what the gods intended when they created the man. A provider, a shelter, a friend and a protector.

"Why won't you let me protect you, then?" he asks. I've got to get used to that. I can't be constantly thinking the alphabet, after all.

Then something occurs to me that makes me laugh out loud."I have a theory," I say. "Would you like to hear it?"

He sits back and frowns, disconcerted by my sudden smile. "All right," he says doubtfully.

I let it rip. "My theory is that I'm attracted to men for the same reason I'm a scientist."

He screws up his face into the funniest expression of confusion I think I've ever seen. "_Huh?_"

I laugh. "A scientist is never satisfied," I lecture. "My job, my passion, is to continually probe the meanings of things. Once I know how something works, I need to know why it works, why it didn't happen the millions of other ways it could have happened. Why the way it works _works_. Why do we stay on the ground instead of floating into space? That question makes one a student of physics. And the answer is gravity. But why gravity? Why do objects attract each other? Asking _that_ question makes one a scientist."

He's silent, but his mouth is starting to twitch. It's the closest to a smile I've seen this evening. Encouraged, I continue. "I want to keep asking questions. Keep challenging and being challenged. There's an inherent jigsaw to life. A man as protector, a woman as nurturer. It's stereotypical, and these days it's not a constant, but it's undeniably an archetype of society. I'm not satisfied with it. I don't want to be a protector and have a woman depend on me. I prefer the tension of challenges to the comfort of easy answers. I want a lover who is a rival, who I can admire and seek to overcome and clash with and meld with. So by all means, go on protecting me. Just don't expect me to fit into the role of the protected. I've got higher ambitions than that."

It's like glass shattering and sprinkling sunshine over the room. The Matt I knew is back. He's grinning and laughing. I'm suddenly trapped in a bear hug. I struggle and fight against it, anxious to see his face again. He doesn't let me. "You're in for a hell of a time, then," he says against my ear. "I don't give up easily."

"Glad to hear it," I whisper, all the tension draining from my shoulders. My hands touch his back and it's like connecting with a network of warmth that's been denied me too long. The need I feel in the pit of my stomach is frightening and overwhelming. I embrace it, too.

We go to bed happy, but I awaken in the middle of the night to feel him rolling into me. His hands go around my waist and his breath is on my shoulder. "Stop it," I hear him whisper into the air. Is he dreaming? He's squeezing me tightly, and I have the distinct feeling he's afraid.

I'm afraid, too. Because if I follow my theory to its conclusion, there's a sad moral to be found. We've come together too simply, too easily. Does that mean it will be nothing more than another simple twist of fate that breaks us apart?

**Next: Discord**


	5. Chapter 5

When I wake up, he's gone.

Not a great way to start the morning. He's left a message on his notepad, which is sitting on the pillow. I squint at it. I think it says "Downstairs at breakfast." That makes sense. I wish the "b" would stop pretending it's a "d." Or a "q," for that matter.

Shower. Wipe sleep from eyes. I had a nightmare that Mohinder had Ted's power and was dropping nuclear bombs on New York, trying to kill Sylar, but in the meantime he was killing lots of other people. I'm no good at interpreting dreams, so I'm screwed for knowing what the hell that means.

Downstairs at breakfast it said, and downstairs at breakfast they are. Of course, this is a motel, so breakfast consists of sitting on the couch in the front office eating cereal in prepackaged disposable bowls. Dale is getting crumbs all over the couch. They're talking animatedly.

Dale sees me coming first and waves a halfhearted hand. His mouth is full of cereal, but that doesn't stop him from greeting me in his singular way. _So you're not just with Mohinder, you're __**with**__ him. Interesting. Is that why you left your wife?_ He seems pleased to see me scowl and turns his attention fully to the topic of conversation, which has something to do with mitochondria and is entirely over my head.

Mohinder, on the other hand, lights up when he sees me, and I feel a bit of relief. "Good morning," he calls out. "We've been waiting for you to join us."

"Why didn't you wake me up?" I say, sitting with them after grabbing one of the cereal bowls. Oh, _great._ Raisin Bran's all they have left. Oh well, could be worse. Could be Special K.

"Mohinder figured you'd want to sleep in," Dale chimes in. As though he had any part in that decision as all. Not that I'm jealous. I can't be jealous of anyone with eyebrows that fugly.

"Well. That was nice of you," I mutter, chomping on disgusting dry cereal. "What's the plan today?"

"There's a name on my list in Albert Lea, Minnesota," Mohinder says. "I thought we could go as far as Minneapolis today and visit tomorrow morning on our way to Chicago."

"Anything in Chicago?" Dale asks with a full mouth. I'm no fainting fop, but it's disgusting even for me. Like he doesn't even care.

"Not that I know of," Mohinder says. "It's just on the way. If we drive about twelve hours tomorrow after the visit, we can make it to New York by midnight."

"I see. So there's nobody on the List in that town?"

What's he so curious about? "You sound disappointed," I interject.

He frowns a moment, then turns those big brown eyes upward at me like he's a little boy who's been caught in the cookie jar. "Well, I'd love to meet others like me. You know."

"I've met some others," I say. "Nobody you'd really be interested in."

But interested he sure is. "Really? Who!?"

I'm on the verge of telling him about Ted, in effect warning him I've got friends with powerful weapons, when some instinct freezes me in the act. That would be wrong somehow. "Nobody," I mutter. "Just a guy from New York. Can do the same thing as me." _That's disappointing,_ he thinks. "And I got close to Sylar once."

For one instant, panic flickers across his eyes. Has Mohinder been telling him horror stories? Serves him right. "How close?"

"Not close enough," I growl, remembering what the bastard did to Audrey and how close he came to that little girl. "He got away."

"What do you suppose he wants, anyway?" Dale wonders idly. "Why would he want to kill so many people?"

"I'm unsure," Mohinder says, getting up. "He seems to want something they have. I'm operating under the assumption he wants to eliminate others like him, but what does that earn him? I'm really at a loss."

"Doesn't matter. We find him and lock him up." I say it out loud, but I'm really just trying to convince myself. Mohinder can have the scientific curiosity. I'm a law-and-order kind of guy. I don't need the reasons behind everything. And I don't need to go down to Texas and find out what Ted knows. What Bennet knows. I should be here. Damn it. This shouldn't be bothering me so much.

"Except, isn't he a telekinetic?" Dale is saying while I'm agonizing. "Wouldn't he be able to, I don't know, bend steel bars with his mind?" _How could someone like you stop him?_ His thought cuts into my introspection, and it stings thirty ways.

I rise to my feet, startling Mohinder. "I'd do whatever it takes. I'm a cop. It's not a superpower, but it's what I am. And it means I have an obligation to enforce the law. And that's just what I'll do if Sylar-- or anyone-- threatens someone I care about."

* * *

He looks at me as he says that. I think I'm supposed to be flattered. He's being possessive. Trying to tell me I'm what he cares about. Well. The sentiment is appreciated. But I told him once before, I'm not likely to fall into the role of the protected.

I think I might be a little bit wicked, but I'm enjoying this. The instant antagonism between these two is entertaining. It really strikes me as a fascinating clash of incompatible personalities. Matt is grounded, earthy, and so very real, whereas Dale is practically transcendent, he's so anxious to find something greater and better than what he's been given. Perhaps I am playing a little too much the armchair psychologist, but the scientist in me wants to stand back and observe. After all, as exciting as these interactions are on a cellular level, they're even more intriguing on this scale. I shouldn't be so interested. These are people's lives, not some experiment in a petri dish. Still, I want to see how they work, what sort of instinct drives them to butt heads like this.

Well, I think I know part of it. Dale is obviously socially inept. The filter between his mind and his mouth is not terribly well calibrated. The causality between that and his isolated workplace is an interesting puzzle; I can picture scenarios going in both directions on that front. And for Matt, who can pick up on not only his ill-chosen words but his thoughts, he must be doubly insufferable.

Even so, I'm rather fond of Dale. Not as a friend, but as a sort of stunted pet. He worshipped my father. He thinks I've got all the answers. It's hard to say no to that kind of affection. And even if he hasn't got the purest soul, I have the feeling I can handle him.

Not so with Matt. The moment he grabs my hand and drags me into a corner to talk, I feel my pulse accelerating. All I can think about for a moment is where I want those big hands of his. How badly I want to just dive into that broad chest and spread my fingers across his back. Bring that weight crashing down on me. The image knocks the air out of me, and I'm dazed for several seconds. When I come to, I shake my head back and forth vigorously, and whisper, "H-- how are you doing?"

"What do you think you're doing alone with him?" Matt demands.

"Having breakfast, I suppose," I say slyly. I'm egging him on. I should stop. "Did you think otherwise?"

He blushes, mutters "Well, I wish you wouldn't," and looks down at his feet. He's on guard. Good. That means he has less of a chance of stealing my breath away.

"What is it about him that upsets you so much?" I ask, my curiosity getting the better of me. "I thought you could get along well with anyone you just met. Didn't you once tell me that? That you were always able to say the Right Thing, capital R capital T? What about him is so different?"

It gives him pause. "I don't know," he admits. "To tell you the truth, I don't think he is any different. I just think I'm... out of practice." His eyes are almost painful in their honesty, in the vulnerability they betray. "I haven't had to pretend anything in days. I've been so natural that I just forgot to try."

The admission touches me, but I smirk. "I'll take that as a compliment."

His eyes go dark,and he kisses me hard. For a moment, I'm a moaning idiot against his mouth. None of my muscles work. He does this to me. Every time. And it's a little frightening. Can I really be blamed for wanting to exercise some modicum of control?

He pulls away, smiles, and says, "You should."

When we leave the motel twenty minutes later, he's in the driver's seat, whistling and smiling. Master of his domain. Or so he believes. I'd _like_ to think I'm still in control here.

* * *

"So Matt," Dale says suddenly from the back seat. He's been sitting there silently, playing idly with his wristwatch, for several minutes. "Mohinder was telling me that you two only met a few days ago," I glance at him in the rear view mirror, but he doesn't meet my eyes. "Talk about a whirlwind courtship. You sure turn around quick."

"Dale, that's--" Mohinder starts, but I can see how this is going to go.

"No, that's fair, he's got a point," I say, smiling. "If you think eleven years of marriage is quick. But I'd think you of all people, Dale, would appreciate the concept of destiny. If we were meant to be, why fight it?" And just to add insult to injury, I take Mohinder's hand.

Dale glowers. I feel like crowing. Mohinder just shakes his head sadly. "The two of you are going to give me gray hair," he says.

I shrug and smile at him. But the next minute, the stakes are higher. Dale is smiling pleasantly, but he's thinking into my head, _I'm going to promise you one thing right now. When this car arrives in New York, there will be only two people in it._

And all of a sudden I've lost my sense of humor.

How we manage to survive the next four or five hours is anyone's guess. I think we just manage to avoid ticking each other off for a while. We just stew in our own juices until something comes along to take our thoughts in a different direction. In this case, it's on the second leg of the trip, when Mohinder's driving. And it's a phone call.

* * *

Matt picks up his cell phone and mumbles into it. "Y'ello?"

It's midafternoon. We're approaching the Minnesota border. North Dakota has been almost the opposite of the drive north through Utah and Idaho-- not red mountains but green fields lay all around us, terrain flat instead of ridged, uniform instead of wild. It matches the mood in the car. The craziness of Matt's music and the rambling nature of our conversation has been stifled so completely, it's like a funeral in the car. I'm somewhat disappointed. I'd hoped for more of a spark than this. I suppose it serves me right for wanting to perform this social experiment.

Matt sputters the name "Ted" into the phone, and his voice goes down to a mutter. "What do you know?"

I watch the small expressions of interest, fear, and furtive curiosity play across his face as he speaks to this Ted. I wish I knew what was going on with that. The conversation as I see it is tense, guarded. "How can I get in touch with you? You won't give me your cell," he says at one point, then his eyes go wide. What could he possibly be hearing?

At the end of the call, he says, "Minneapolis. Ted, wait a sec. Who's this friend?" But it's obvious his caller is gone. He puts his phone away. "Damn."

"You should go with your friend," Dale says suddenly.

"Go with whom?" I wonder. "Matt?"

Matt glares at him.

"I'm sorry!" Dale pleads, putting up his hands in a gesture of surrender. He points to one ear. "It's this. It's my hearing. I could hear both sides of the call. I didn't mean to betray your confidence, Matt."

I don't need Matt's ability to know what he's thinking: _Yes, you did, you bastard._ "No problem. It's no secret," he covers, turning to me to explain. "I have a friend who's in some trouble in Texas and he's hoping I can fly down to help him out."

I feel the bottom drop out of my world. For the first time I consider that Matt might actually leave. I don't know what's scarier: that idea, or that the idea scares me so. I'm suddenly reminded of how big my feelings for him are, how out-of-control he makes me feel. I keep forgetting how dangerous that is. Perhaps I should encourage him to go so I can get back to what I'm supposed to be doing. "Oh. Is it very serious?"

He shrugs. "Kind of. But so's this."

"Well, you know there's no reason you have to come to New York right now." I need to be matter-of-fact about this. "If you need to go, go. There will be an airport at Minneapolis. You can come back when you're done."

"I... I think he'll be OK. For now." But he leaves the option open. I feel a small ocean of dread open up in my stomach. I drive on in silence.

* * *

We pull into Minnneapolis late at night and find a 24-hour newsstand and cafe. Mohinder is still unsure whether he wants to visit this next person on the List or just continue on for two more days to New York. He's browsing the newspapers and I'm sipping a decaf that tastes like tooth decay when suddenly he gives a shout.

I jump up. Behind me, I hear Dale say in that oozy voice of his, "What is it? What's wrong?"

"That," he says, pointing. The paper is the Virginian-Pilot. There's only one left on the rack. The headline reads, "Local musician found slain."

Mohinder picks up the paper as I look over his shoulder, and he points to the name in the story's first paragraph: Zane Taylor. "He was on my father's list. It's Sylar. It has to be. Damn!" In a rare moment of violence, he kicks the side of the empty newspaper stand. It rattles, and a screw falls loose onto the floor. The cleck behind the counter looks up, disturbed, but decides not to say anything.

Dale bends down to replace the screw. "I thought you said he was last seen in Texas," he says. "How did he get as far as Virginia?"

"I don't know. Maybe he can fly," Mohinder snaps bitterly. "One more name to cross off, I suppose. God! If I had just gone there instead..."

"That's... awful," says Dale, concern lining his face as he stands again, moving backward to sit in a nearby chair. He rubs his temples as though he has a bad headache. "That poor guy. What on earth did he ever do to deserve that?"

"He was _there_," Mohinder says darkly. "Which is why I've got to get there first next time. This paper's a half-week old. Sylar could be anywhere by now. Damn it!"

"We should get back to your study. Check the List. Make as many phone calls as we can. Warn them about what happened to this Zane guy," Dale suggests. He looks slightly green.

Mohinder's nodding blankly. He looks dazed. All I want to do is wrap my arms around him and comfort him. How can he shoulder this much responsibility? How can he possibly think he's to blame for what happens to some musician half a country away?

For once in his life, Dale does the prudent thing. "I, uh, need some air," he says, rising again and backing toward the door. "I'll... just be out by the car."

The minute he's gone, I move to Mohinder, grab him by the shoulders and wrap my arms around him. He shakes, grabs my waist with weak hands. "I've been wasting time," he whispers. "I let him die. I... I can't afford this... Other people will die if I don't.."

"What? What are you talking about?" I can't believe he's saying this. He's frightened, more so than I've ever seen him. I feel like crying for him. It's just heartbreaking. "Hey. Mohinder. Hey. Hey. It's me." I touch his face, trying to bring him up for air. "Look at me. You haven't done anything wrong. You couldn't have done anything."

"I could have," he protests. "I should have gone there first. I shouldn't-- _we_ shouldn't have happened, Matt. It was an unnecessary complication..."

I go to pieces. It's just ridiculous, what he's saying. "A complication? Are you insane?" I shake his shoulders. "I've been living nonstop complication! Finding out you can hear people's thoughts? Getting abducted? Losing your wife and getting her back to just to lose her again? Those are complications!" I'm roaring again. I've got to stop. I grab his face with both hands, smile despite the fact that I feel like crying. "You-- this, _us_-- this has been the easiest, simplest, most natural thing to happen to me in years! There's nothing complicated about--"

I bite my lip. I was about to say _loving you._

His face has that flat, amused look on it that means anything but amusement. It means he's putting up walls. "You're right," he says, the scientific bite in his voice. "It's very simple: I want to be with you. So much I can taste it sometimes. So much I want to throw everything else away. All those other, unnecessary things. Like people's _lives._"

I knew it was coming, but it stings nonetheless. "Why?" I beg him. "Why does this have to be your cross to bear?"

"Don't play this game of am-I-my-brother's-keeper with me, Matt," he says, folding his arms. "You should be worried about the things that are your responsibility, too. Like your friend. Ted. He's in trouble. Go to him."

"What?" I gape at him. "Mohinder. I'm... I'm not leaving you. Especially not now."

"_Please._"

It's the one thing I don't expect, and it has me stumbling backward. "What?"

"Dale's right. You should go. You have to." _I need you to,_ he thinks.

"Dale--" I fly apart. "That bastard. How long before you figure out that he's trying to drive us apart? Trying to make us not trust each other? He's jealous, Mohinder. He wants you. Can't you see that?"

"I can handle him," Mohinder says in a low, seething voice like the coil of a cobra. "This is for me. Matt, you're too much of a distraction. I'll never get done what I need to, because I'm too--" He clams up, looking down.

"You're too what?" I glare at him. If he's going to throw me by the wayside, he'd better damned well be able to articulate why.

He's silent. But his thought is clear enough. _I'm too happy with you._

I should be flattered, but instead I'm just livid. "OK, that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. You are dumping me-- no, you're asking me to dump you-- because you're too _happy?_"

"Matt, I cannot afford to fall in love right now!" There are tears in his eyes. "I can't..."

"It's not a goddamned yacht, Mohinder!" I don't know why this makes me shout. Maybe because it's the closest he's come to admitting he might be in love with me. Maybe because I need him to admit it first before I can admit it to myself. "You don't only do it if you can afford it!"

"Please." He's truly crying. I feel like a monster's fist is clutching my heart, crushing it. "You're making this too hard..."

"Then let me make it a little easier." There's something reactionary in me, something cruel and masochistic, that takes over then. I'm watching myself in horror, unable to believe what I'm saying. But I'm still saying it. "What if I told you I don't love you? That this is all just a rebound, that I'm a cop and cops don't have lasting relationships with other men if they want to keep their jobs? That I went into this knowing from the beginning it'd never be more than a fling?"

And then I'm tasting blood, because Mohinder has punched me. Hard.

I'm falling. The newspaper rack goes rattling to the ground under me. The loose screw goes to the floor again and spins there like a demented top. Mohinder is standing over me like a triumphant monster. I haven't felt this small since the third grade. "Is that what you think is the Right Thing to Say?" he demands. "Or do you really mean that?"

"What do you think?" I am spitting blood from my mouth, on my hands and knees. "You want me to mean it?"

"I think," he says deliberately, "that if everything you just said is true--" _if you don't love me,_ he thinks, though he doesn't say it-- "you'll leave. Right now. Tonight. Go to your friend and forget all about this 'fling.' Because you obviously don't need someone like Dale to destroy the trust between us."

It's just then that the clock strikes midnight. It's a dull, nauseous, ominous chime. The screw wobbles on the floor with the force of it.

The screw.

Dale had been on his hands and knees, replacing the screw. Then he was in the chair, looking down. Then he was backing toward the door.

The whole time, the name Zane had never been spoken aloud.

He knew it.

He knew it...

I get to my feet and wipe the blood from my jaw. The clock is still chiming as I tear out of the building.

**Next: Fast-forward**


	6. Chapter 6

When I step outside, Dale's sitting on the trunk of the car, his back to me and his mind a whirl. I hear the words _mother, power, trust._ I wonder how close I can get before he notices me. I stay where I am and listen.

And I hear the word _murder._

What kind of guy thinks the word _murder_?

I already know the answer to that question.

"I can hear your heart pounding," he says aloud, jumping down from the car. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I step around into his field of view. He grins and walks up to stand toe to toe with me. His eyes. They're completely different. Completely. I've never seen such eyes in my life.

"Were you reading my mind, Officer?" he asks, no, sneers.

I try to grab him, but I can't move my arm. I can't move anything. It's like I've been locked in a column of ice. Everything's numb. Except for the pain. What is he doing to me that hurts so badly? It's everywhere. And I can't even open my mouth to scream.

"What have you heard in my head, I wonder?" he says. Those eyes are full of fire. They're full of lust and greed. They're full of sin and crime. "Did you hear the name Zane Taylor in my head?"

"You said... that out loud," I force through my numb lips. I sweat and strain, but nothing else moves. "Sloppy."

"Oh?" Those gigantic eyebrows raise and for an instant his eyes are the round bowls of innocence they were before. "That was sloppy of me. All right, I'll concede you that point. What else do you know?" He grins. "Go on, Matt. Say it."

My voice has been made hoarse somehow. "You're Sylar."

"Brilliant." All at once my body is moving, pushed by an invisible hand strong enough to lift it in midair. I'm a big sandbag of a man and I'm flying backward onto a nearby car. It rattles with the impact. I can feel the bruises pooling under my immobile skin.

"So now that you know who I am," Sylar says, walking in a wide circle toward me. "the question remains: Why are you still alive? The truth is, I should kill you right now." For an instant I can feel a metallic hand like a vise on my throat, and I struggle but fail to breathe. My mind bursts into white-hot clarity and fades to dullness, and then it's over and I can breathe again. "I'm dying to see exactly how you work. Reading thoughts. How beautiful. Oh, how I've wanted to kill you and take a peek."

"But you didn't," I croak out, though it feels like talking with solid concrete in my lungs. This guy's more obscenely powerful than I'd imagined. He's constricting my airways. With his _mind._ And if what he's saying is true, and he can look at his victims' minds and somehow take their powers-- it makes the whole brain-slicing thing make sense. And it means I am way the hell out of my league.

Still, he hasn't killed me yet. And that means something.

"You're right," he says, tilting his head to the side like some demented Kewpie doll. "I didn't kill you. For two whole days I've been enduring your continued existence. And I'll bet you can tell me why. Can't you?"

The constriction gets worse. He must be enjoying my struggles to speak through the pain. "Mo... hinder. You want his... list..."

"Exactly." He climbs up onto the car I'm splayed against, and leans over me. For a moment I think he's going to rape me or something equally horrific, but instead, he just leans back and turns his head to face me. If I live a thousand years I will never forget that grin. "The only reason I've been keeping you alive is because he's fond of you. And I need him to trust me. I need him to give me the list. And now you've finally gone and picked the fight with him I'd been hoping for. So I'll just tell him you flew into a jealous rage and left. Just like he told you to." He smirks and taps his ear with one hand. "And here I thought that woman's power was completely useless."

That's it. After all this, I'm going to die in a godforsaken Minnesota parking lot. Mohinder will die, too, eventually, at the hands of this monster. I close my eyes and see his face behind my eyelids. Oh, God, please, Mohinder, you're a smart man, you're a genius. Figure it out.

"BUT."

The pain vanishes, and I'm gasping for the air I've been denied. He jumps up again and begins to pace. "You know what? I think I'm not going to kill you right now, after all. After all, Matt Parkman of Los Angeles, I can find you anytime. Instead, I think I'm going to take a little revenge on you first. You've been a pain in my backside for so long, I don't think I'll be satisfied if I kill you without repaying the favor."

My body can move. I scramble to the ground, go to my feet. But I can't reach for my gun, can't grab him. He's keeping me upright and rigid. I'm being floated to our car like a puppet on a string. It's surreal. Then the trunk flies open, missing my nose by less than an inch. I try to yelp in surprise, but no sound comes out.

"Take off," he says. "Go find your friend in Texas. Get out of my way."

"Why should I?" I hiss, though my arms are reaching out to grab my suitcase of their own accord.

"Because in return, I'll spare Mohinder's life." He's moved right behind me, purring his silk-lined venom into my ear. "Stay, and I can't promise he or you will live to screw another day. He was generous enough to give you an out. Take it."

"I don't.. understand."

His voice goes from a whisper to a mad monotone, like a sick chant. "I want you to know every single day you're alive is a gift from me. And I want you to know that while you're in Texas, your boyfriend's with me. Alone. Hurting from your betrayal. Looking for comfort. Needing someone to lean on. And learning, very slowly, how to hate you."

He backs away. "But it's that or die. Your choice. What will it be? I'm waiting."

Time hangs as still as space around me. I'm reliving that awful argument, the things I said hurting worse than the bruises on my back ever could. And worst of all, the sword-stab sting of Mohinder's ultimatum.

_If you mean any of what you just said-- if you __**don't**__ love me-- then leave. Right now._

It's midnight. I'm far from any place I've ever called home. I'm being held hostage by a serial killer. My life is on the line. I'm gasping and panicking and struggling and agonizing. And with all that, I haven't shed a tear.

Until now.

In this moment, I know two things with perfect clarity.

One, Mohinder is right. I do love him.  
Two, that's why I am going to leave.  
Right now.

* * *

I hardly feel my arm raised to hail the taxi.

My name is waiting at the airport, on a ticket, just like Ted said it would.

My bruised body can't get comfortable in the plane seat.

The rest of me is on a cliffside overlook in Idaho, making love to a beautiful man in the dirt by the side of the road.

Please, God, let me stay there forever.

* * *

_Matt and Ted take the Bennet family prisoner in their own house. Ted learns there is no cure. He nearly claims all their lives when his panic is accelerated by a gunshot. Their subsequent abduction breeds an unlikely alliance, and the three head to New York, intent on setting themselves and their loved ones free._

_Mohinder continues eastward with Sylar. By the time he gets to New York, he is wise to the man's true identity. He poisons him and attempts to kill him, but in the end he is unsuccessful, and Sylar escapes. Mohinder reaches out to the man in the horn-rimmed glasses, but it is his former superior, Thompson, who answers. Mohinder meets him in the shadow of a building with a brightly painted sculpture in its front courtyard. Inside that building waits a simple twist of fate._

* * *

Molly.

Her name is Molly Walker and she is life itself.

I have been sleepwalking for days now. She is the key to my reawakening.

She waves at me from the other side of the glass as I continue to review her medical history. I've only spoken with her the once. She told me I was terrible at drawing blood. I'm sure she's right. But her smile. The dimple that puckers into view when she laughs. And her eyes! I've never been so captivated by a pair of eyes before. What Thompson says about her ability must be true. Those eyes must be able to see anything.

So when she tells me I'm different-- that I am special, even if it is just especially clumsy-- I want to believe her.

I want to make it as true as it seems to be in her eyes.

I've been fighting against things for so long-- fighting against my father, against myself, against love, fate, time, evil, despair-- that I'd forgotten what it was to fight _for_ something.

I will fight for this girl's life. With every cell in my body.

Her name is Molly Walker and she has made me, for the second time in two weeks, fall in love.

* * *

I don't let myself sleep, because sleep only brings memories of warmth that drift away by daybreak. I don't let myself dream, because dreams are upside-down, echoing with the laughter of a man I was foolish enough to trust and the warnings of a man I was foolish enough not to.

Not a moment goes by that the two of them don't duel in my head, playing tug-of-war with my memories. Remember me, says Sylar, remember how dangerous I am and how I am still out there waiting to destroy you and everything you hold dear. Remember that you, like your father, are responsible for unleashing me upon the world. That is what happens when you are weak, when you trust.

And remember me, says Matt, remember that for a few moments in the middle of this madness you and I were happy. That happiness exists. It's just that it never lasts. It will never last for you. And you will never love as fiercely as you loved me. We had only a few days, and you will never recapture them. So remember them. It's all you've got left.

In the end, I'm torn apart. I am sure I'll never allow myself to feel again.

And then comes Molly and I begin to see light.

It doesn't matter if I allow myself to love again. I love her immediately. She compels me to.

* * *

It's not the proudest moment of my life when she comes in after I've unceremoniously dumped the entirety of the day's paperwork onto the floor. Since when have I been so violent? First Sylar. Now this. I feel as though I'm falling into something complicated and dark. I want someone to save me.

"You look sad," she says.

"I'm sorry. I'm not sad. I am just..." I sigh. "I want to help you."

"You will. I can tell."

The faith in her voice is heartbreaking. I turn to her. "Yes. Yes, I will."

She picks up a piece of paper. No, it's a photo. "Who's this?"

There are others in the photograph I know, but they might as well be invisible. I stare at the smiling face, the buck teeth, the twin pigtails of the girl in the center, and I realize who I'm looking at. "It's my sister. I've... never seen a picture of her before."

"She's very pretty," says Molly. "Is she why you're sad?"

I should say yes. Instead, I just look at her dumbly.

"It's something else, too?"

I never realized children could be so perceptive. "No," I tell her. "I just want so much to help you. I was too late to save Shanti. But I won't be too late to save you."

"But who's going to save you?" she asks, and I'm dumbfounded. Again. How does she know...? "Here." She hands me a folded slip of paper. "It'll protect you."

I unfold it. It's a crayon-drawn gold star.

Such a simple token, and it fills me with warmth. I know exactly who's going to save me in that moment. She's saving me already.

For a long time that night, I gaze at that star. I think of my father. I think about love. How simple the concept is, really. Why do we complicate it so? All it is, at heart, is people wanting to live for each other. Take care of each other. Help each other.

Save each other.

I scramble to my feet. There's love radiating from my father's face in that picture. My mother is holding her belly-- me-- with pride. And hope. Because I'm the answer to her prayers.

* * *

I let myself sleep that night for the first time in too many nights. Of course, I dream. I dream of a California highway plowing straight through an endless ridge of jagged mountains. I'm driving with Molly, and she keeps telling me to look at the beautiful highway. I protest to her that it's not the highway that's beautiful, but the mountains. But my arguments make no sense even to me-- the road is pristine, gleaming concrete, and the mountains are ominous, blood-red and parched. I can't get her, or myself, to see reason.

Just before I wake up, I think I'm on the ceiling of my apartment again, looking down at Peter Petrelli and gasping a warning.

When I awaken, I'm still disoriented, and I don't know which way is up and which is down.

* * *

She's brilliant again today. She looks healthy. More importantly, she feels healthy. So much so, she says, that she can find people again. She demonstrates by finding me. At least, that's what I think she's doing; her pushpin goes right to the building we're in. Quite frankly, it's not a terribly convincing demonstration, although it still has one leg up on "Let's go see my friend, the heroin addict." (Wow. This girl has truly revived me. I think I might have a sense of humor again.)

"Is that supposed to be me?" I ask, indulging her.

"No," she says. "It's my other hero."

Oh, well. Isn't that sweet. I suppose that means I'm one of her heroes. And I wonder who the other may be.

"He's the police officer who saved me from the boogeyman," she explains.

_What?_

"If he's here, can I see him?"

I can't even process her request. My heart just sunk through my shoes and now I think I can hear it careening off the walls several floors below.

The odds are astronomical. It can't be. What are the chances that the one other person she thinks of as her hero could be the same person... But he said Sylar had killed a couple in Los Angeles. And she's from Los Angeles. And Sylar killed her parents. What are the odds, given all that, that it wouldn't be the same person?

I'm clutching for a foothold. I can hardly breathe. How bizarre, how hopelessly convoluted can life get? Can the strings of history truly be so unbelievably twisted and knotted and tangled that this coincidence can possibly happen?

And then my eyes fall on the gold star she's given me. The gold star she said would protect me. And a singular thought occurs to me.

What if it _isn't_ complicated?

What if it isn't even coincidence?

And at that moment, all the strings of history are pulled taut and fall into perfect, parallel alignment. Laid end to end, they reveal they were never knotted in the first place.

It explains why I haven't been sleeping. It explains Molly. It explains the excruciating pain that's been gnawing at my heart all this time. It explains everything.

I've had it upside-down all this time. Loving Matt was never a complication. It was supposed to happen.

Everything else that happened-- the psychopath who insinuated himself into our lives, the mind games he played, the tortured logic I managed to confuse myself with -- those were the complications.

Loving him was simplicity itself.

Perhaps it was even fate.

"Doctor Suresh?" She's looking up at me. I must have tears in my eyes, for I can barely see. All I want to do is gather her up in my arms and thank her. What a gift she's just given me. I blink, and a handful of tears fall. "Are you OK?"

I don't know if I'm OK. He's here. I will get to see him again. I will _have_ to see him again. I'm petrified. Hope and fear and anger I've kept asleep for days now are all awakening at once. I have so much to tell him. Will he listen? All I can do is have faith. Ironic. Faith, like fate, I've never been able to embrace before. And yet it is the simplest answer.

But then it all goes topsy-turvy again. Thompson comes in, and we're being told she's in danger, and he's off again with a gun in his hand and a gun in mine, and I'm in front of a monitor with my thoughts in a whirl. It's the man in the glasses. Bennet.

"What does he want?"

"Molly," says Thompson darkly.

He heads out of the room. I remain staring blankly at the monitor. Bennet has a look in his eyes I recognize. At first I think it's the crazed look of Sylar. But then I realize it was my own. The moment I pulled the trigger, thinking justice was being done. And I know exactly what Bennet has come here to do.

I'll be damned if I let anyone lay a hand on her after all that. But then Thompson's on the monitor, and he's pointing a gun.

At Matt.

Matt's with him.

I want to scream. I want to close my eyes and have it all go away. Can't the world stay still for one moment? I've finally figured out which end is up, and now there's new evidence to reverse it all. Will Matt kill her, too? Is it possible that he's decided that is the way to set himself free? Then Thompson's got a gun pointed at his own head and he's dead and Matt doesn't even look back as they hurry in this direction.

I could try to talk to him. Reason with him. If he's anything like the man I thought he was, he'll listen. And if he isn't...

My God... if he isn't, I will have been taken in by one too many men. I will never trust my own judgment again.

Bennet I know I can't stop with words. But Matt I don't know if I can trust. I can overpower him if I don't think, if I take him by surprise. Or I could believe in him and risk him possibly warning Bennet. The two of them together I will never be able to stop.

I have a choice to make and no time to make it.

I stagger back as they approach the door. My fingers clutch the wall. Something large and bulky. A fire extinguisher. I grab it, slink backwards into the shadows, and try not to breathe. Keep my mind blank.

They come bursting in. He passes by me, so close to me. I can very nearly smell him. Then they're through, bursting into the small bedroom, and the Bennet man's got his gun on her. It's time to make my choice.

For a moment I'm in Idaho on a cliffside road. Then I'm being taunted with poisoned words by a madman. Then I'm being given a gold star by a girl who trusts me to protect her.

And with all that, I choose to believe.

I close my eyes and think as loudly as I can. _Matt. Duck._

He does. I slam the fire extinguisher into the back of Bennet's head.

**Next: Tis a gift to be simple**


	7. Chapter 7

A shot goes off, burning a bullet into the floor, as Bennet falls

A shot goes off, burning a bullet into the floor, as Bennet falls. Molly screams.

"Mohinder?" Matt turns.

I have my gun raised and trained on him already. Just in case. Just in case.

His stare is wild. His presence is so near. So real. Another moment, and I'll lose my nerve and run to him. It's all I want. He's here and I'm here and everything else is just a needless complication. I don't understand why I can't be holding him right at this moment. He looks like everything I've ever yearned for and everything I never dreamed I could actually have. And yet I'm holding a gun on him. It's absurd beyond words.

But then the man on the floor is stirring, and Molly yelps. She's on the ground behind her bed, peering under the mattress at him, hissing like a cornered alleycat. Faster than I can draw breath, Matt moves into action. He kicks away Bennet's gun and kneels to the floor to gaze at her.

"Officer Parkman?" she says incredulously.

"Molly?" He echoes her tone. And she's scrambling over the bed to him and I know he's not going to let her die.

I knew it. I was right. For once in my life, my trust was not misplaced.

Bennet groans and starts to get up. It takes him only a moment to realize the tables have turned, that he's alone against the world. He raises his arms in a gesture of surrender even as he snaps at me. "You son of a bitch, don't you get it? As long as they've got her, my family will never be safe."

"You hurt her and I'll kill you," I inform him unceremoniously. I wish I were a cobra so I could spit venom at him. The amount of loathing I have for him right now that he would hurt this child is unspeakable.

"Hey. Nobody's hurting anybody. Nobody's killing anybody," Matt says, spreading his fingers wide and making broad circling gestures in the air. His eyes are on Molly. She gulps in a breath.

"Can I have a word with you, Professor?" says Bennet, looking decidedly ticked but no longer feral.

I try to calm down as well. I lower the gun slowly. "Yes, I think that'd be a good idea."

"Let's step outside, then." He's back to that alarmingly cool visage he presented when we first met. "I need some help cleaning up."

* * *

They're probably taking care of Thompson. I can hear their bickering in the back room like obscure background music. The noise is muffled, but the thoughts behind them are clear. I try to white them out.

Molly Walker. What the hell is she doing here? And with Mohinder, no less? Then again, I never did find out what happened to her after the FBI got through with her. They wanted me to talk to her, that much I remember. But then Sylar came after her at the facility, and she was moved, I thought to a safehouse or another office, but... how is it that she ended up here? I can't get a handle on what must have happened.

I remember being briefly kind of cheesed that I never got a chance to sit down and talk with her. In a way, Molly changed my life. Hers were the first thoughts I ever heard. Or, the first thoughts that mattered. I think I might have heard one or two things before that, but Molly's the one who set everything in motion. But beyond that, there was something so right about the way she leapt into my arms when I reached my hand out to her. I felt like a little angel had just melted onto me, and I thought, I don't deserve this. I don't deserve this girl's trust. I can't do anything right. But I wanted to let her trust me, even so. Because her arms, skinny and shaking, wrapped around my neck were like a blessing. I felt kind of redeemed.

Then it happened again, when Sylar came for her, and she was in my arms again and I thought to myself, sort of absently, that I wished she was my kid. Maybe they'd let me adopt her, I thought, and then laughed at myself for it. But when Jan told me she was pregnant, I have to admit thinking I hoped it was a little girl just like Molly.

And here she is. I didn't ever think I'd actually see her again. She's really freaking cute. Her eyes are so perceptive.

"So, uh. Molly." I say. "How have you been?" Dumb question. Her parents are dead and she's miles away from home.

Still, she gives me a little brave smile. "I'm glad to see you," she says. "I worried about you." There's a reproachful tone to her voice, and I feel like I'm getting scolded. It's kind of adorable.

"I checked on you all the time," she goes on. "Before I got sick. I wanted to make sure the boogeyman hadn't gotten to you, too."

"Me? Nah." I bluster, waving my hand. "He could never hurt me."

She leans forward, looks a little pale. "But he was _with_ you."

I stumble back. "What? How did--" And then Bennet's words ring through me. _I knew the tracking system was a person._ And it smacks me right in the middle of the head. The Walker system. Well, _duh._ One mystery solved. Brilliant deduction, Detective Parkman. Just in time to be completely useless.

Oh well, on to Mystery #2. "So, uh, Molly... how come Mo.. I mean, Doctor Suresh is here?"

She wrinkles her eyebrows. "You know him?"

In the Biblical sense. Stop, Matt, stop. God, I'm so giddy at seeing the both of them again I've almost forgotten that there are guns and corpses and killers out there. "Yeah. Yeah, I know him. We're... we're friends."

And she gets this huge grin on her face. "That's cool!" she enthuses, color coming to her cheeks for a moment.

Yeah. It kind of is, isn't it?

But now she's edging up to me and her smile disappears. "You are gonna protect me, right?" she says earnestly. "You won't let anyone hurt me, right?"

I'm moved. "Of course I won't," I tell her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Oh, my God, her shoulder's shaking like a leaf. Her whole body's shaking. She's falling.

I tear out of the room. "There's something wrong with Molly."

Mohinder's by my side in a flash. Together we're putting her in bed. Bennet's forgotten, the world is forgotten. Just have to get her safe, stable, relaxed, so he can bring her back to strength. I've got a hand on her forehead, thumb stroking her hairline. He's inserting an IV. I wince. It starts to drip, and he sits back for a moment and heaves a long sigh.

He's unshaven and disheveled and worried and the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my whole life. And the two of them together. I feel like I'm going to die from the tightness in my chest. I've never felt this much love. I want these two people in my life. Desperately.

I mean, look at us. We're working together, taking care of this life that we feel a shared responsibility for. It's so intuitive, so right. So simple. It's like we're her parents. Her family. That should be terrifying, but it's not-- it's the opposite of terrifying-- and _that_ is the terrifying part.

It's probably time for us to talk.

"How... how did you?" It's the first question I can ask, and it makes very little sense.

"I was brought here. After Sylar e-- escaped." So he knew. He found out. Well, of course he did. He's alive, isn't he? "You were right. I'm sorry, Matt."

I left him traveling cross-country with a killer and _he's_ sorry? "He... he offered me your life," I croak. "I didn't leave because I wanted to. I thought it was the only way to protect you." He bites his lip, and I can't help but half-laugh. "I know, I know. You don't need protecting. Right?"

When his eyes meet mine, I am sure he is not quite human. He's sent to me from someplace far above, someplace where men like me aren't allowed to set foot. "I'm just so glad you're safe," I hear myself say. "I worried... I tried to call." But only once. I told Bennet I was trying to call my wife. He wouldn't even let me do that.

"He told me I was a parasite," Mohinder says.

"What?"

"I thought I was so clever," he says bitterly. "I poisoned him, thought I'd incapacitated him. Thought I had him at my mercy. Fatal hubris. I called him a parasite, and he started to laugh. He said to me that I had... I had led you on, strung you along to indulge my own curiosity. I was willing to take all of your trust but not to trust you. Who's the real parasite here? That's what he said to me."

I'm struck dumb. Has he been torturing himself all this time with that nonsense? Doesn't he know better than to listen to the words of a psychopath?

Of course, I'd been doing the same thing.

"He told me he was going to make sure you learned how to hate me," I say.

Mohinder smiles sadly. He's rubbing Molly's palm with a gentle finger. She's stirring now. "He said an awful lot, didn't he?" he says.

"Do you? Hate me, I mean? I mean, I know I deserve it, but..."

I shut up. For one thing, Molly's eyes are opening. She looks up at Mohinder, then at me, and gives us both a contented smile. We're connected by her, and it's amazing to think that she was the one who started this path I've been wandering down. The first voice I ever heard in my head. Molly brought me to life. She taught me to believe. And she guided me home. She draws the circle and she brings it to completion.

Mohinder feels it too. I can tell. The extraordinary, but utterly simple, twist of fate that has brought the three of us together.

"I don't hate you," he says softly.

* * *

Matt's gone after Sylar. Bennet's gone elsewhere. For the first time tonight, I have room to think. And there's a lot to think about.

Thompson is dead. I have to deal with this development before anything else, because now I have no idea to whom to turn to continue to care for Molly. I've had contact with no others but him and the young woman who tutors Molly on alternate days. I have no idea who is running this particular show, but I fear that whoever it is may be concerned with things much more lofty than a ten-year-old and an immigrant doctor. Thank God she's getting well. Navigating the American medical system is hardly something I'd like to deal with any time soon.

Earlier, Matt and I had been sitting on opposite sides of her bed as she talked to us about the man she calls "worse" than her boogeyman. I had no idea such a creature existed. Whoever it is, I hate him with every fibre of my being for having caused her one moment of terror.

I knock on her door. She still looks a little pale, but at least she's sitting up now. I suppose it was the excitement and the fear that got to her more than anything. Adults are cruel creatures. We get caught up in our dangerous games, and it's the children who are hurt, always. I'll be damned if I let that happen ever again.

"Molly," I say, sitting on the side of the bed, "did anyone ever talk to you about what would happen once you got well? Where you'd go?" She shakes her hand. "Do you have any grandparents? Or aunts and uncles, people you think you should go stay with?"

"Are you gonna send me away?" she asks. She's pouting; her lip is trembling. Oh, no, oh, no. She's got exactly the wrong idea.

"No, darling, I'm not going to send you anywhere. Nowhere you don't want to go." I reach over to caress her hair. Such a sweet soul. "You don't have to go anywhere if you don't want to. You can stay right here in this room. But..." I take her hands, crouch so I can look her in the eye. "I was wondering if you might want to come stay at my apartment for a while."

"You mean, with you?" I can't read her expression. I'm not sure if the idea thrills or horrifies her. Still, I nod hopefully.

She folds her arms and frowns at me. "Can you _cook?_"

It takes me a moment to bite down the laugh that tries to escape at that moment. Oh. She is too precious for words. "Yes, I can cook. Does that mean you'll consider it?"

She breaks into a grin and nods, bounding forward to hug me about the waist. Oh, how I love this little girl. I'm going to take care of her. Protect her. Be her family.

Then my phone rings, and I have to leave her for a moment. I step into the next room. "Yes?"

"He's gone. He's not here." Matt's voice. The phone buzzes with static urgency. "He's heading in your direction."

And suddenly the domestic dreams are tossed aside and I'm in a state of near-panic again. "How... how do you know?"

"Your friend the painter? Dead," he informs me. The world seems to sway on its axis. "Our pal Dale has been drawing some pictures."

"Oh, no."I remember the paintings I saw. The giant explosion on the floor. Panic hits me full-on.

"I'm on my way. Try to get out of there." His voice is urgent and heavy on the line.

I reach for my duffel bag, begin shoveling supplies into it. "We will."

And then his tone drops to something dark. "Don't... let anything happen to Molly," he warns, as though he were the one solely responsible for her.

I feel a swell of jealousy and, at the same time, some affection. When this is all over, I will have to talk to him. "I never would," I promise.

"Good." His voice is halfway gone already. I shout his name, and he returns to the receiver. "What?"

"Be careful," I say weakly. I hope to God he doesn't need to read my mind to know what those words mean.

"Yeah." The phone clicks off. I holler for Molly. It's time to move.

* * *

Be careful? What does he mean, be careful? Wish I was in the same room with him so I knew what he was thinking.

Oh, my God, that painter's room was the freakiest thing I've ever seen. Those places, those paintings... I was _there_ at half those places. The homecoming banner. That freaky woman. I even think that was the same diner. What other kinds of creepy-ass powers have people got that I've never heard of?

Not that much matters right now. Fucking traffic. I could run faster than this. Molly, Mohinder, _get out of there!_

What else could that painter foresee? Did he see that Sylar would be impersonating an auto mechanic in the middle of nowhere? Did he see that a little girl would be in danger? I'm starting to hate this guy. How could he see all this and do nothing?

No. I've got to be honest with myself. I'm hating myself right now. Because I had the chance up there to make things right and I didn't. Because Mohinder doesn't hate me and even though the world's about to end, or so Bennet says, all I can think about is him.

No, not just him. _Them._ The moment I saw her again, the moment we were sitting there at her bedside, they became a unit. It had seemed so simple when we were all sitting there, but down here in the real world? The futility of it is like a wave of nausea. God, I can't afford this. Why did it have to feel so right? Like we were meant to be there? No. No time to start hoping again. Everything I've ever touched has turned to shit in my hands. Mohinder may not hate me, but I screwed that one up, too. There's no way I can start wanting Molly in my life, too. She's too precious to break with my big, ugly hands.

Well, first things first. Kill Sylar. Save the world. Then we'll see.

Finally arrived. That blue shadow by the statue. Must be him. If I can just get a decent shot, even he's not fast enough to dodge bullets.

He doesn't seem to hear me. Good.

I can get a little closer. Perfect.

That's it, "Dale." You've hurt the people I care about for the last time. This is for Molly's parents. This is for the real Dale. This is for the head games you played with Mohinder and this is for throwing me against that car. In short, this is for everything, you motherf--

_Nice try, Matt, but I could hear you breathing ten seconds ago._

Oh, shit.

* * *

The elevator takes forever. Halfway down, I think I hear gunshots in the distance. My heart is skipping through my throat a thousand miles an hour. Molly clutches my hand and jumps a little. The family by our side is one we've met before. Lord knows how they've ended up here, but the woman seems to have calmed somewhat. She's no longer pointing shotguns at us. Instead, she seems almost squeamish. She jumps and clutches her son by the shoulders.

We come outside in time to see Bennet crushed against a wall. I've never seen anything quite like it. A man just flying backward like a lump of clay. It's shocking.

And then I see him. He's crouched against a pillar. Crumpled. He's hurt. He's bleeding.

I push Molly ahead of me. With the instinct only a mother could have, the blonde woman puts her hand on Molly's shoulder and takes her in. The moment I can tell she's in safe hands, I bolt. I don't so much run to him as I am sucked in, like gravity. Nothing could keep me away.

Bullet holes. Oh, God. He's been shot. He's bleeding so much. I press my hands to his chest. Blood gushes over my fingers. Stop, stop, stop. Please, please.

He's pale, But he's conscious. He cranes his neck to turn to face me. "Hi," he whispers.

"Don't move," I beg. I knot up my shirt, press it into one of the wounds. Crimson spreads across the fabric. There are four holes. I only have two hands. What am I going to do?

"So, gorgeous... going my way?" he rasps, laughing, then wincing as he realizes what a bad idea that is. It breaks my heart a thousand times over to see him hurt like this.

"Be quiet and keep still, I have to stop the bleeding..." It's so hard to see when my eyes are this watery. I bite my lip. "I refuse to lose you again."

"What... talking about?" He somehow manages to raise a hand and touch my face. His hands are still warm. Thank God. "Never... lost me. I lost you."

"No. No, you didn't." I'm reaching into my small bag, pulling out one of Molly's spare shirts.

"Sure I did. Can't... hold on to anything." He gasps then, and I follow his gaze just in time to see someone else fly through the air and then vanish. I blink and want to rub my eyes, but my hands are occupied. There's no way I saw that correctly. People don't vanish.

Except they do. Haven't I learned that by now? Occam's razor, Mohinder. The simplest explanation is most likely to be the correct one. If you've just seen a man vanish, it's because a man has just vanished.

Sylar is crumpled. And now... oh, my God, is that Peter Petrelli and is he _glowing_?

Perhaps the world truly is going to end. Selfishly, I think I'm glad I am here to see it. And I am glad I am able to spend a few moments with this man before the void comes. My thoughts are in a whirl. I can only feel blood on my fingers and see a man glowing with energy, the heat he's giving off starting to warp the air around him.

I curl my head down toward Matt's. I just want to be close to him if this is the end.

But then there is a man who can fly. Dear God, I know him, too. And he's walking to his brother's side and speaking to him in hushed tones. I'm too far away to hear what they're saying. I just know that it's terribly important. I feel tears come to my eyes.

They're both rocketing up into the sky now. And for one brilliant instant, midnight becomes noon.

I'm dimly aware of all the people around me. The young family. Molly. Bennet with his daughter. All people I've met before. They're all here now, and we are joined both by history and by this moment. By what we have seen and what we are seeing. We are witnesses, in the long and the short term, to the world being saved.

"He did it," I whisper. I taste tears on my lips. "He said he was going to save the world, and he did."

"Some guys are... just heroes," Matt says, straining to speak.

I look at him. He has no idea how true his words are, does he? He was shot tonight. Trying to take on Sylar, no doubt. Trying to protect us.

I think about what he has done since I've known him. He threw away a convenient lie to get at the truth about what was happening to him. He put up with the machinations of a psychopath and eventually walked away from me, even though it would hurt us both, to ensure my life would be safe. He put the life of a little girl above his own, went after a killer. Has this man ever done anything less than heroic?

"Not feeling so good," he mutters. "Think I might pass out..."

"Let's take care of Molly," I say.

I'm surprised at myself. Perhaps I expected to tell him I loved him, or that he would be fine, or that he really shouldn't be talking. But I didn't expect it to be that. The moment it passes my lips, though, I know it is what I want. More than anything.

He's just blinking at me. I can almost hear the blankness in his mind. "You and me," I elaborate. "Let's take care of her. She told me earlier she'd come stay with me. You should come, too. Stay with us. That would make us... would make me very happy."

He's squinting. "Are you serious?"

"Yes." I touch my forehead to his. He's clammy, and my stomach is jolting with panic. Thank God the ambulances are arriving. "Yes, I'm dead serious."

"But she..."

"Don't worry about all of that. Just say yes," I plead. I don't want him to speak. But I don't want to let it go, either. I've done far too much of that. This time, I refuse to make that mistake.

He takes a moment, looks at my face. "Stuff like that.. you can't just decide," he says, struggling for the breath. "It's not... that simple."

"Yes, it is." I feel sunshine in my heart, although the brilliance has long since faded from the sky. "It is that simple. I love you, Matt. She loves you. We can give her a family. Don't you think it's curious? That you and I should both know this girl, and be there when she needs us?" I'm laughing. I think I'm crying, just a little. "That's fate. It has to be."

He smiles a bitter smile, coughs. A little spatter of blood flies at me. "Thought you... were a scientist. Didn't... believe in fate." The pain that flashes across his face nearly kills me.

"Occam's razor," I say. His eyebrows knot in confusion. "The simplest explanation is the most likely one. There's a little girl over there we both adore. You do, don't you? Adore her?" He nods gravely, glancing over at her. She's still holding the blonde woman tight, but her eyes meet his and I can see the flash of connection between them from here. "Isn't that enough? Doesn't that make us a family?"

He's silent. I go on. "It's that simple, Matt. You were right. It was always that simple. Please."

He's slipping out of consciousness now. I want to shake him awake, want to slap him until he's able to answer. Instead, all I can do is lower my eyes. "Please," I repeat.

I think I hear him whisper something before he drifts away. I don't know what it is.

* * *

As the stretchers carry him away, Molly runs to his side. She begs him not to die. "You're my hero," she pleads.

I come up behind her, kneel and put my arms around her waist. "He'll be OK, right?"

I nearly tell her that I don't know, that the doctors will have to examine him and there's no telling how serious the shots were. That I wish I could give her a guarantee, but there are none in life, she knows that already. That life is fragile and the human body is a complex thing and that we will just have to pray that he makes it.

But then I say, "Yes. He'll be fine." And I'm shocked to discover that I believe it completely. I can even see it.

He'll be fine, and when he wakes up he'll smile at the sight of both of us there at his bedside. And I'll ask him again if he'll come stay with us and he'll start crying and say yes. And we'll all three be crying and laughing and from that moment on, we'll be a family.

Because after all this-- after finding each other, nearly losing each other, discovering we have this child in common, surviving the end of the world-- there's no way the story ends here.

It's as simple as that.

_:__the end:_


End file.
